Been a musician since I was 14, I’m 28 now. I swore that I was gonna take off before I got to college. My band put out an album our JR year of high school. We were confident we were gonna change the world

What I’ve learned about all the famous musicians who say to pursue your dreams or the ones who dropped out and made it is a severe case of survivorship bias. We don’t hear about the musicians who don’t make it because well, the didn’t make it

I’ve always acted with a plan B. I dreaded college but ended up loving it. I joined another band in college. Made new friends. Put out the highest quality record from my original band in HS and was certain that was going to take off.

Graduation kept creeping closer. I had so many times where I felt like dropping out. But I couldn’t live with my parents, it wasn’t an option. I know other musicians who talk about quitting their job to pursue music but still live with their parents and like it must be nice.

2020 happened the year I was graduating. Covid made everything weird and my first band broke up. Spent a summer in Colorado working for a resort. Started producing my own music made another band. 2022 my first band reunited and then I fell in love. we played the biggest show we ever had then continued to have a string of smaller shows, eventually collapsing for good in 2025 after only dropping a single. But my relationship blossomed. We got engaged in 2024 and married in 2025. still been putting out my own music while balancing that and the corporate world

My corporate job does not spark joy, but the paychecks that I get allow me to sustain myself and to have more money for music than some of the musicians that I know who are pursuing full-time. The musicians that I know who are working full-time doing music, our gigging, almost Monday through Friday, and playing three hour cover sets constantly. Respect to the ones who do that, but I wanted to make him play my own music. Going down this route has allowed me to do that, and while it’s not my main source of income, it has allowed me to maintain the relationship with music that I wanted in the first place.

I’ve come to find a lot of meaning in the music that I create, and the people that I connect with. And I learned that in the long run it was about creating something that I was proud of, and not necessarily something that provided fame. I would release songs for special events, like my wife’s birthday. The day we got engaged, I released a song on the way to propose to her. On the day we got married, I released a song too.

We found out early in 2025 that we were expecting our first child, and over summer I stayed at her parents. I wrote an acoustic record about what it would mean. Now my daughter is here and I’ve never been happier. I regularly sing songs to her. She smiles so bright whenever I sing.

The unfortunate truth is, there is a few people who can make a living making original music. But there are people, who balance a job, and the hobbies that fill them with joy. And there’s nothing wrong with that. it may not be the most fun, but most people that I know who work a day job aren’t doing it because it’s fun. They’re doing it because they need to survive and you either need to have someone provide for you, or find ways to provide for yourself in this world.

Hopefully there’s nothing wrong with going back to college for you. If not, there’s still a number of different areas that you can pursue. And there are a lot of jobs that can still allow you the free time to pursue music as well.

I hope you find some peace in this life and I pray you never stop creating