CAREER (un)commitment

WRITTEN BY WESLEY JOHNSON ART DIRECTOR BOOCHIE POST PHOTOGRAPHED BY SAMANTHA JOH MODEL FIONA GIBBENS DESIGNER STELLA RANELLETTI

this: you’re eighteen years old and applying to colleges, trying to pick a field that you can commit your life to. It feels like a marriage of sorts: once you make your decision, it feels irreversible. As life goes on, you realize that you’ll have to make many more of these decisions. What jobs do you take? What relationships do you have? Where do you sign your next lease? They all demand attention and commitment, and as I have progressed through my college years, I’ve realized, it’s not that serious.

External pressures never help: parents and friends asking you what school you’re attending, or what your post-grad plans are. The questions never seem to stop, and can easily make you question yourself on if this is truly a direction you feel an undying yearning to follow?

The amount of times I have wanted to radically change the course of my educational career are so innumerable I have lost count. It wasn’t until I was spiraling on the phone with my mom that she said to me, “Wesley, this isn’t permanent. Don’t feel like you have to sign your life away to a professional career.” That really struck a chord. The wildest part is, I had never thought of the possibility that if I wasn’t satisfied doing what I was studying, I could simply switch gears.

This is exactly what Stephanie Kimmel, the founding chef of Excelsior Cafe and Marché restaurant, thought when she left her Comparative Literature PhD program at the

University of Oregon to pursue her dreams of opening a coffee house back in 1972. After she got her undergraduate degree, she traveled around Europe, then decided to move to San Francisco. After living there for a year, she felt a pull to continue her education, and moved to Eugene for graduate school.

While attending school, Stephanie picked up shifts at a local cafe where many of the professors’ wives also worked. As time went on, she said “I loved reading and critical work, but I didn’t like a couple of my professors. And that made a huge difference.” So, she dropped out of the university and decided to open her own cafe, Excelsior, and “got bit by the restaurant bug,” she said.

After owning the cafe for a little over 20 years, Stephanie and her husband decided to sell it and open a French restaurant, Marché. Stephanie was inspired by the farmto-table environment that she had witnessed while traveling around France. Cautious, but never regretting her career change, Stephanie said that “depending on what your passion is and on what you’re drawn to, give it a try. If you decide that it wasn’t for you…you can just do something else.”

This may be easier said than done, and in practice, making a career jump can be a big financial gamble. If it doesn’t pan out, it can leave you disheartened and more broke than you ever were before. So, if you do find yourself going down a path that you know will ensure financialsecurity, don’t judge yourself too harshly. Not everyone has the resources to drop what they’re doing to pursue a different career path. I do feel however, that it is just as important to nourish the soul as it is to fill your pockets. This is precisely why going into any one professional field doesn’t need to be viewed as a lifelong commitment.

Thinking back to when I was applying to colleges, I was so anxiety-ridden I was losing hair. It felt like I was signing my life away to a career path, when I was barely old enough to buy a lottery ticket, or get a piercing without parental consent. How could anyone expect me to dictate the trajectory of my life when I couldn’t even decide what to have for breakfast?

Remember that nothing is permanent. It’s okay for your interests to change, especially as you mature through different stages of life. Something you may be interested in when you’re 18 may not translate into your 20’s or 30’s. The beauty of life and interests is that they’re fluid; they transform as you mature. If you commit to one career path when you’re still a teenager, don’t beat yourself up for switching it up a decade down the line. You never want to feel like you’re stuck in a never-ending cycle, so break it. Part of maturing is coming to the realization that nobody else knows what the f*** they’re doing. Or, if it makes you feel better, at least I know I don’t.