Do what you love.

We've all heard that. And, it's pretty easy advice to take when what you love is math. I mean, why wouldn't you do math if that's what you love? It's not like it's hard to find a job if you're good at it. Well, maybe it is if your affections are limited to Abstract Geometry or Group Theory. But, even then, you should be able to find a faculty position at some mid-level school where, in exchange for teaching Calculus to a bunch of Freshman who don't particularly want to take it, you can indulge your curiosity. However, if all you want to do is sink your teeth into deeply analytic problems, you've got options everywhere. Most of them pay pretty well, too.

But, what if what you love isn't one of those things our society chooses to reward? What if your passion is teaching Elementary School or writing poetry or painting (pictures or houses; neither are particularly promising careers)? Or, what if what you love is playing the Trumpet? Which, is the case with my daughter.

Now, she's only 13. Lots of 13-year-old's enjoy music and then go on to do something else (quite often, math). But there's a difference between enjoying it and loving it. I know because my private teacher in High School spent his days teaching at Julliard. As such, I played in ensembles with some of the very best music students in the world. Two things became clear to me.

1. If I practiced enough, I would get as good as them.
2. There was no way I was going to practice that much.

I simply didn't love it like they did. Yaya loves it.

Sometimes she gets distracted and forgets to practice, but I never have to nag her. I simply ask if she's practiced today and, if the answer is no, she hops up, grabs her horn, and starts to play. Usually the answer is "yes". Or, more commonly, "yes, I played a bit before school" (when it's warmer, she plays at the roadside waiting for the school bus to show up; one of her friends holds her music), "then I had band during school and jazz band after school, then I did some scales when I got home and I'm going to do some improv tonight."

As a result, she was the only 7th-grade trumpet in All Suburban Jazz this year. They had their concert yesterday and they were a pretty tight act; crazy good by the standards of Middle School. It could be that the next Dizzy Gillespie is taking trumpet in some 6th grade class in suburban St. Louis, but it's a better bet that Yaya will get the lead spot next year. Especially if she keeps working at it the way she is.

Now, just as my parents were more than happy to buy nice instruments, pay for private lessons, and send me off to music camps in the summer, I am unconditionally supportive of this as an extra-curricular activity. Well, no, that's not really true. We have had to insist that she not blow off all her other schoolwork to practice more. But, that rather obvious constraint aside, we're totally behind this.

But, what if it's more than that? Will I really be able to honestly tell her to do what she loves if what she loves is a career with such limited chances for success? I think so. I hope so. Because, if I can't, then it's just a stupid catchphrase and not real advice at all.

I do know what it means to fail in a high-risk career. I never made more than $10,000 in a year as a cyclist. I got fired from my team every single year and had to find a new one. I lived out of my car. I got divorced. I hit my 30th birthday with less than a thousand dollars to my name. I would not trade it for the world. I have lived the ensuing years with no regrets about what might have been. I want the same for her.