DEAR MB #1 - Doubts and Denzel

for those wondering, "am I doing life right?"

I’m currently 25 and I’m not entirely sure if I want to keep going down the path I am on. I’m a graduate student getting a masters degree in music theory. As I get more into the degree and I see all that goes into being a professional music theorist/music scholar, I’m just not entirely sure that I am well suited for this. I don’t know what to do. I’ve invested years of my life and thousands of dollars to achieve this goal that I thought I wanted, and it’s such shit to have doubts about it and my ability to succeed part way through. I want to do something with my life that I will enjoy doing (which is what led me to something in the music field to begin with), and I do still really love music, but I’m just really not sure what it is that I may actually want and that uncertainty terrifies me. Do you have any advice for when you have moments of uncertainty or doubt regarding what to do with your life?

Hi chicken,

I read your note and immediately wanted to wrap my arms around you straight-jacket style. First off, because you’re a fellow music theory nerd, like me. I used to love spending hours deciphering classical fugues and trying to understand why Lydian mode made me feel things that the Phrygian mode did not. I don’t know why I fell so deeply in love with music theory as a high schooler. Perhaps because music is the universal language: music communicates not what we say but how we feel. Dedicating years to deciphering its intricacies is the pursuit of understanding not simply ‘theory’, but humanity. I say this to dispel your fear that by striving for a degree in music theory, you have pigeonholed yourself and will only have a thin margin of career options to choose from. I promise you, that is not the case.

We can discuss all the potential ways you could extrapolate your degree outward via outlets that feel creatively fulfilling, but I sense that is not what’s truly at the root of your question.

You accomplished something incredible: getting into grad school, a MASSIVE feat of academic excellence, but now you’re wondering… what is it all leading to? What if I chose wrong?

When I was 24, I hit a low point. My contract at Les Miserables on Broadway had not been renewed (fancy speak for: I was fired), and I found myself back to working two survival jobs and performing in a show on the East side for 200 dollars a week. I had achieved a career “high” by booking a Broadway role at 23, but, less than seven months later, it was like that moment never happened. I wondered if I’d made a huge mistake. I’d committed and had some early success, yet I now found myself worrying I was not good enough nor strong enough to withstand the ebbs and flows of the industry I had chosen. The bottom fell out from under me: maybe I’d chosen wrong and it was too late to back out. I’m curious if you, having achieved this unreal accomplishment of getting into GRAD SCHOOL WUT WUT, are now feeling the same?

What I wish someone had told me at the tender age of 24 was that your twenties are not a time for certainty, despite what the media might say. Our culture is obsessed with wunderkinds: young supernova pop-stars and silver screen darlings are lauded, twenty-somethings are launching production companies and signing book deals. It feels that to not know is to be unsuccessful: a failure, a waste of the time, energy and finances you and your family have put into your future.

But that simply isn’t the case. There’s a great Denzel Washington interview in which where he breaks down the first three decades of adulthood with such searing clarity, the interviewer basically asks him to be her therapist on the spot. According to Denzel, the first decade (your 20s) is about learning. The second is for earning. The third is for returning.

I’m not saying we should all take our advice from accoladed movie stars, but there is so much truth to Denzel’s words. This phase of your life is simply for learning, for collecting data. For throwing yourself into experiences and seeing what sticks. It can feel irresponsible to act without a concrete plan, without quite knowing where each step is leading to. But, in my experience, it is far more detrimental to live life with an inflexible playbook. Because those are really your only two options: accept moments of uncertainty and remain open, or squash all curiosity and pray the thing you chose to pursue four, eight, even eleven years ago is still the thing you want from today.

I have watched friends, peers and loved ones deal with the fallout when their carefully curated Life Playbook erupted into flames; when the route they had mapped out for themselves at 21 took a sharp turn down the rabbit hole and disappeared from sight. It is scary to not know, but trust me, it is far worse to forsake doubt in favor of obstinance.

Doubt is the sticky, delicious grayness where creativity and intuition come into play. Where we have a chance to actually get quiet and listen to what our soul and mind respond to. If we impose an unyielding blueprint onto our lived experience, we potentially rob ourselves of the countless opportunities that could be lining our path if we only dared to swing our head around and take them in.

It sounds like, at this moment, you’re tempted to take your eyes off the road in front of you, even for just a brief second. If that temptation is growing…succumb to it. This is an era where following your curiosity, listening to your doubt (be it in relationships, career, lifestyle) is powerful and necessary.

We are allowed to change our minds. In fact, it is imperative that we do.

The other secret no one admits is that not every moment of life is going to be magical. I’m sure you’re thinking, “Damn girl! What kind of advice column is this?” I know. I really dropped a not-so-sunshine-y bomb just now. But it is, for better or worse, the truth. You know those “always be optimizing life” TikTok influencers? The people who make it look like there is not a second of the day when they are not doing exactly what they want to be doing?

I am here to tell ya my friend: it’s not real. No one escapes moments of crunchy discomfort. I feel like we’ve romanticized “following our dreams” so much, we forget that sometimes there are days when the dream is just a job. When the perfect partner you dropped everything for is just an equally fallible human. When the masters degree is just a launch pad, not the pearly arrival gates.

It’s important to delineate between doubt and discomfort. Doubt is something we can act upon. We can change our actions, our choices. We listen to it and act accordingly. Discomfort, however, cannot be “acted upon”. It is as inevitable as my dog whining for food at exactly 4:22 pm each evening. Discomfort is the natural ebb and flow that occurs in career, marriage, family, friendship etc, the growing pains we must learn to reckon with.

At that show where I made 200 dollars a week, I had the pleasure of working with Tyne Daly. Tyne is, and this is not hyperbolic, a legend. There should really be a “Six Degrees of Tyne Daly” because she has worked with everyone, everywhere. And there she was with me, sharing a basement dressing room with five other women, making below minimum wage, leading a show in which she poured her heart out for two hours straight to a polite audience of about 100 people a night.

One night, I asked her how she could have six Emmys and a Tony and now be down in the basement with me. Tyne looked at me, perhaps wondering where I got the pluck to ask such a rude and invasive question. Perhaps she sensed I was floundering, though, for instead of chewing me out *which would have been equally amazing* she softened and told me tries to live like a “leaf on the river. I go where the tide takes me and I remain flexible. I know if I end up behind a rock, the tide’ll eventually wash me back out.” Look, that may sound very woo-woo, but it made sense to moi. There is simply no good life lived that’s devoid of risk. If you end up behind a rock because of one choice, chances are you’re not gonna stay there forever. But it would be far worse to never jump into the stream.

I promise you, a masters degree is not a waste. Education is never a waste and your time spent becoming a music theory expert is not time squandered. You can be uncertain and still finish this program: both realities are allowed to coexist side by side. What I would simply encourage you do is use your doubt and transmute it into curiosity. Are there professors at your school who work in music therapy? In music marketing? Music production? Music arranging? What did your current educators do before they were professors? What part of music theory is most interesting to you, if any? Can you contact recent graduates of the program and find out what they’re doing now? Your only job at this venture is to ask questions and see where they take you.

And if you don’t believe me, just listen to Denzel.