One of the most significant realizations I’ve come to accept in the past eight years is that life, and everything in it, is a compromise in one way or another.

I wanted to be a digital and fine arts major. Instead, I’m studying visual communications technology, with a bit of graphic design on the side.

Don’t get me wrong; I picked the right major for what I want to do with my life. I’ve been working on some rather interesting projects so far this year, and I shudder with delight every time I get to make a vector drawing of a barbarian warrior wielding a bass guitar.

But if I could study anything I wanted to study – and I mean anything – then it would be art.

I love art, and when I say that, I mean it. I took four years of fine arts study in high school, and I worked with a wide variety of different media, from oil paint to screen printing.

Then, when I learned that BGSU offered a respectable art program, I knew what I wanted to study.

But I didn’t know what I needed to study.

I’m no spectacular artist. Sure, I can whip out a decent self-portrait with some thick art paper and a handful of pencils, but my stuff pales in comparison to some of the absolutely phenomenal work on display at the art building.

When I walked through the art building during a tour of the University, the realization hit me like a sack of bricks: “I’m not good enough to do this.”

Whether I was proficient enough and sufficiently talented to be a digital or fine artist is now irrelevant. I knew that I needed an alternative course of study.

So, I looked all around the Union ballroom for a major which piqued my interests, and I found it. VCT allowed me to utilize my creative side just as much as fine art, yet it was something which I was better suited to. Art was only partly practical for me; VCT was the praetorian of pragmatic majors for me (regardless of how much sense that statement makes).

I guess that’s what life is all about: compromises. We can’t have everything we want.

Our dreams can be misleading.

Our emotions can misguide us.

Our hearts can make us think in more subjective ways than we actually should.

That’s why I literally redefined my dream. When faced with the realization that art studies would probably not be the best course of study for me, I realigned my college-targeting lasers on another major, and it yielded equally awesome results.

Sure, it might actually have been foolish to abandon my dreams of studying art; I could have been the next big artist to sweep America!

Then again, common sense tells me otherwise: “Study something a bit more practical for your specific talents and interests, you egotistical moron!”

I still believe in the tradition of following dreams; those nice little aspirations of greatness are what give us a reason to get up in the morning. Plus, they feel pretty awesome.

However, sometimes our dreams can mislead us, and in such cases, dreams must be redefined. It’s another case in which change is needed to find a better solution to an uber-significant dilemma or situation.

We need not be afraid of changing our dreams to better fit the social, economic, educational and political atmospheres and conditions in our lives. If I chose to be a digital or fine artist and I found out that careers requiring such talents are few and far between, then that is a prime example of me not taking the availability of jobs in such a field into deep and thoughtful consideration.

People change, conditions change and dreams need to change as well; not necessarily in the 180-degree-turn sense, but a hearty dose of practicality can save a boatload of people from following their hearts when they should be following their minds.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go make a vector drawing of a Roman Legionnaire wielding a Les Paul guitar as weapon. Doo do dooo do “