(Sorry if any of this sounds pretentious. I know there are people that have much much worse problems than I will ever have to face)

I'm a Senior in High School and have a 4.6 GPA (Out of 5.0) and 2100 on my SAT (out of 2400). I've been thinking about where I want to go to college for and I'm conflicted. I feel like I would rather work at a job that I like than something that pays crazy money (Like the chinese proverb "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.").

I play piano, guitar, sing and I write songs. I think I had a naive idea in my mind a while ago that if I could make it in music, I could be rich and do something I love at the same time. Therefore, I've put a bunch of time into learning music and getting good at songwriting.

But the thing is, when I look around me, I see 2 types of musicians. On one hand there are musicians that have put in much more time than me, are more dedicated and are much better and the other hand there are a lot of amateur people who are convinced they are going to make it in music but are oblivious to the fact that they suck. I don't want to be a starving artist who ends up poor and bitter constantly saying, "that song should have been on the radio they ripped me off." I know people who have spent their entire lives getting good at music and then are bitter when they are old that they didn't make it. So since there are only so few artists that make tons of money in the world (some with little to no talent) and millions of posers and disappointed virtuosos, I realize that my chances of making it in music are almost 0. Especially since the music industry is completely going down the tubes.

The thing is music has become my life. I do nothing but come home from school and work on music stuff and it has even impacted my social life. But I feel like my perceptions of what a musician does has changed. What I didn't realize is it is a ton of hard work and at the end of it all, your success is based partly on luck.

I have good grades and I feel like whatever job or college I go to, I will set my mind to my major and excel at it but I feel like my whole life I will just be regretting and thinking of what could have been with music. And what makes me depressed about that is I see people all the time who scrounge for recognition in the music industry but never make it and end up having piss poor jobs and dying bitter. Or I see people who work at jobs they hate and the only thing that keeps them going is a naive notion that someday, they will make it and their music will pay for their escape from their horrible life. I don't want to be like that.

I thought of doing music production and have learned how to do Pro Tools and mix and EQ and mic etc but then I realized that a lot of music studios are going bankrupt because no one buys music anymore and because people can just record near-studio quality music in their homes for under ,000 now with the advent of Logic and Pro Tools LE. This is also an extremely competitive field and it's in an industry that is shrinking rapidly.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I have spent so much time with music with naive hopes about the future and now I have to choose what job I'm going to do for the rest of my life and I'm scared that I'm going to hate my job and be filled with regrets for the rest of my life. I can't see myself doing anything but music because I absolutely love it but realize the impracticality of that idea and the millions of people with the same wide-eyed optimism.

But just the thought of being a consultant to a box company or sitting on a board voting on new budget cuts or sitting in a cubicle all day working on newsletters makes me cringe. I'm thankful that I have good grades because at least I can get a job where I won't have to worry about paying my bills and stuff but I feel like there has to be something more to life. I don't know, I realize I'm ranting but can someone please give me some advice or alternatively, explain to me the meaning of life? (As I brace myself for comments of "ungrateful" and "you need to suck it up and work")

Related Blogs

• Steve Jobs Introduces GaragBand 1.0 (assisted by John Mayer ...
• Crazy Taxi 3 (Full ISO) | Full And Free Download rapidshare ...
• 5/15: Dos Gringos' charity event benefits music … - AZCentral.com ...
• Learn Music Fast Online | Arts and Entertainment
• “Godthink” – The Naive Idea That All Religions Are the Same