Follow Your Bliss by Katelynn

Follow Your Bliss by Katelynn - May 2014 Scholarship Essay

It started because of the memoir of an Illinois junior senator.

My high school history teacher quirked an eyebrow at my dogeared copy of Barack Obama’s ‘Dreams From My Father,’ and asked if I did a lot of reading in my spare time. I told him that’s what spare time was for: reading. Learning. Growing.

He smiled. “You’ve got the right idea,” he said. “Keep following your bliss.”

Follow your bliss.

The words stuck with me, rolling around in my head until they dug their own groove, until they hollowed out a sacred space in which to echo and plant roots: follow your bliss.

I finally approached my history teacher after class, some two weeks later, and asked where the words came from. He smiled wider, riffled through the books near his desk, and handed me a well-loved copy of Joseph Campbell’s ‘The Power of Myth.’

“That’s the man you’re looking for,” he grinned. “Let me know what you think of it.”

I took the book home, and as I read, I discovered in myself a passion for the study of comparative theology and the philosophy of religion that I’d never dreamed of finding. I was aglow with the thrill of learning in a way I’d never been before. It was blissful, really and truly.

Then it came time to apply to colleges.

Given my test scores, I was heavily encouraged to pursue degrees in physics, in chemistry, in mathematics—“We need more women in STEM fields!” they’d say. Others tried to steer me toward law: “You’re logical and objective! You’d make a great attorney!”

Put that way, it sounded promising enough. So I tried to dig up some bliss in my O-Chem class, some deep love inside my calculus exercises.

“And imagine!” they’d always add; “you’ll make good money, too!”

The truth is, your bliss isn’t something that you have to dig up, or fabricate, or imagine into being. It’s not a thing that rides on the back of job security, or clings to the coattails of a cushy salary. Your bliss is your bliss, and like falling in love, you know it when you see it, when you feel it.

And my bliss was somewhere else.

I went to my history teacher and told him that I wanted to study the humanities. I asked him to convince me that it was a fruitful life choice. I asked him to talk me out of it if I was being foolish, if I was throwing myself at a career path that held no future.

He smiled knowingly as I returned his copy of ‘The Power of Myth.’ “You’ve got to follow your bliss,” he said. “Nothing else will ever fit quite right, in comparison.”

I trusted him, my high school history teacher.

So I followed his advice.

I enrolled in a liberal arts college and studied religion. It was the most transformative and rewarding thing I’d ever done. I traveled the world, and I met incredible people. I expanded my knowledge of the world around me and the people within it beyond what I ever could have imagined. I followed my bliss, and it didn’t fail me.

But four years passed, and commencement drew near. I graduated with honors and two bachelor’s degrees, yet while my friends were finding employment in law enforcement, accounting firms, biochem labs, and law offices, I was looking at three more years of education for my master’s, and a doctorate soon after.

My bliss was beginning to cost me not only money, but what felt like too much time.

So it was with a sense of foreboding that I reentered my high school for the first time since my senior year, and knocked on my history teacher’s door. We talked for a long while, and when I finally asked him what he thought my next step should be, he said:

“Follow your bliss, as far as it goes.”

A few days later, I accepted an offer from Harvard University to complete my master’s degree in religious studies.

And my bliss did not disappoint me. What depths I’d plumbed in undergrad, I far exceeded in graduate school. What breadth of the world’s offerings I’d skimmed before, I now embraced with new multitudes of diversity and possibility. I presented at international conferences, and I lectured domestically and abroad. I worked collaboratively with some of the most brilliant minds I’d ever encountered. I grew as a person, and I learned to have faith in the path of my bliss.

The time for doctoral applications came more quickly than I’d expected—and I can say with relative confidence that applying to PhD programs is no one’s bliss, not by a long shot!—but as I wrote my statements of purpose and submitted my proposals, I wasn’t hesitant anymore. I wasn’t unsure.

I texted my high school history teacher to tell him that I was citing Joseph Campbell for one of the last papers of my master’s degree; he asked me what my next step was, and I told him that I had accepted an offer from the University of St Andrews in Scotland to complete my doctoral work. He asked if I was nervous, leaving the U.S. behind, taking such a leap.

I told him: not really. I’m just following my bliss.

He seemed proud, of that conviction.

I think Joseph Campbell would be proud, too.