Time and what to do with it

I have been thinking a lot lately about what I want to do for a career. As my mother reminded me, being a flight attendant is a career, but it is not neccessarily the career I want to retire with. The lifetime travel benefits wouldn't hurt but I'm not sure I will last another 12 years to get them.

I've been trying to think of how to feed my creative self, and also fuel my administrative gifts at the same time. I am less administrative than I previously thought, but I can do it if I have to. And I like the challenge of organizing and bringing people together to make something happen. I talked to my sister-in-law, who is a realtor, about the reality of realty (that's hard to say fast) and the amount of work and money it takes to make a living. She is very successful, but I have seen how hard she works, and how self-motivated she has to be to make it a career. However, I do love learning, I love looking at homes, at picking them apart and dreaming of their future. I enjoy research, I love working with people, and I really love making other people's dreams a reality. So here I am trying to decide if I should go ahead with my schooling to get my real estate license.

At the same time, I wonder if I put that much effort into music or acting, if I could make a career with that. Am I just running away for rejection again by not pursuing my artistic gifts wholeheartedly? Or am I being prudent? And as an artist, do I really want to be prudent? Let's be real here, so many artists put off their dreams and regret it for the rest of their lives. It's often the ones that take the risks that make it work. And that is also a hard road.

I guess I just see realty as selling something other than myself. Selling my art is selling myself, selling a part of who I am. That is what makes it so difficult. Once I get to an audition I do well, I am confident. But getting there, doing the work to get an agent, especially a good one, is so tiring. Basically it is job hunting without the guarantee of work even when you get hired on.

So would being a realtor fuel enough of my gifts that I would enjoy it? Or would I always be wishing that I was doing something else? And will I have time to do both like I do now?

Another part of me thinks, who cares? If I do it and don't enjoy it, I have lost nothing, and learned something.The other part of me thinks that if I pursue another career that isn't artistic in it's entirety then I am a failure.

Man I knew I never wanted to grow up. At 34 I am still making these decisions! This did not happen in my parents generation. Although I love having options, I am not always good at acting on them. And I don't want to stand still in my life. Time to make some decisions...