Today, my mind was captivated by one of the most intoxicating ideas – an idea for a career. That career is copy editing.

Basically, I need to stop fooling myself. At heart, I am not a people-person and could hardly count on myself to conduct an interview with either ease or ambition.

Presently, I expend more energy than is necessary trying to prove myself to others and obtain that poignant popularity that every person worth looking-up-to possess. Throughout our lives, we are led to believe that success stems from popularity. To an extent, this is true, but however much we gain from maintaining constant comradary, it will never compensate for a weak personal work ethic.

Next to popularity, self-motivation and independence are two of the most integral keys to success. These are qualities that I am still working to perfect. While I may never achieve perfection, I must never underestimate the influence of just an ounce of improvement.

Pending evaluation from a career counselor, my plan for after college looks something like this:

Apparently, copy editors are in high-demand. This is because the work is less-than-exciting, and copy editors receive little or no recognition for it. It follows that copy editors receive significantly higher wages in comparison to their news-reporting counterparts.

I take pleasure in writing, but that’s not to say I don’t enjoy small amounts of reading – ok, sometimes I enjoy large amounts of reading. Will the reading I will be doing as a copy editor interest me? It depends on the content, but ideally, I would like to be a copy editor for literature.

If that is at all conceivable with a journalism degree, I don’t know, but I figure, the more I read, the better I will become at writing. It is a win-win situation because I gain both high wages and valuable expertise that will benefit me in writing works of my own.

Copy editing isn’t as humdrum as it might sound. I am sure I will feel it is tedious at times, but deep down (or maybe not so deep down) I am a perfectionist. I’ve fit, precise as a cookie-cutter, into that category ever since the emergence of my “comma fetish” in elementary school (probably even before then). Commas turned me on in a way that only guys in spandex shorts could come close to. This is all metaphorical, of course. LOL (or to be more grammatically correct, laugh out loud).

During elementary school, nearly every paper I wrote would be returned to me drowned in a flood of ink – more than half of which accumulated near my curly-cue friends. At this point in my life, you could have called me a “Grammar Nazi,” been completely accurate in doing so, and not offended me in the least.

During this time, I had an undying faith in my ability to retain all information relating to Grammar. If I learned something once, it would be ingrained in my brain forever. Unfortunately, my comma-literacy extended only so far. The only rhyme or reason to my comma-distribution delirium was my fundamental knowledge of elementary school Grammar.

Enough reminiscing, though. If I plan on tweaking my major, I am under pressure to do so as soon as possible. I love college both socially and academically, but I have no desire to pay an additional year of tuition as a result of my wavering judgment. Last year, I experienced a similar academic epiphany, and here I sit, denouncing my former decisiveness. Does it ever end, or will I someday be able to inhibit the insistence I have to always venture into the unfamiliar?