growing up i felt compelled to have a job that i felt contributed something "important" to the world. there is a lot of background pressure that a career should be a "calling" or something you feel so passionate about that they couldn't not do it for a living.
a really useful piece of advice i got a little over a year ago (meant to apply to scientific academia but applies just as much to humanities, arts, etc.): jobs that use the language of a "calling" do so to exploit labor. if your job is your passion, why shouldn't you burn the candle at both ends until you have nothing left but passive indifference (or, even worse, resentment) for something you once thought interesting enough to devote your entire life to?
i think a bit about what my life would be like if i just did undergrad in computer science and got an avg boring programming job. lots of choice about where you live, pays pretty well, work is intellectually interesting enough, and it actually ends at 5pm so you have enough free time to explore other things you enjoy. a few friends from college chose this path and it definitely has its downsides, but its worth considering, esp. if you are really uncertain about what you actually want out of your life.
