Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood

The yearbook theme my senior year of high school was "The Road Less Traveled" inspired by Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken." I am sure the only reason I remember this is because I was on the yearbook staff that year, but I digress. In the poem, Frost is faced with two "roads" that lead in different directions and the dilemma of choosing which road to follow not knowing where either road will lead.

I am standing in my own Yellow Wood these days. Now that I am unemployed, I have a tough decision to make - do I look for a job in the marketing/advertising/promotions field or do I try to make the move to teaching, which is, after all, what I went back to school to do?

Marketing is what I know, it is basically the only thing I have done my entire adult career. And to be honest, I am pretty good at marketing. The flexibility of an "office" job is nice - the ability to run out for appointments, take a little longer lunch break or slip out early is not something most teachers are familiar with. But teaching is what I was originally interested in once I realized I was not going to be a professional ballerina. I thought I wanted to be a teacher in high school, but I kind of got talked out it. Knowing that you are facilitating the learning of young minds and that you can have such a profound effect on students is a pretty awesome feeling. Having summers off and being on the same schedule as Kevin wouldn't be that shabby either. 

I've never actually had a classroom of my own though. What if I suck at teaching, worse yet, what if I hate being a teacher? Kevin's simple answer to these questions was "so you teach for a year and then go back to marketing." I guess it is a plus that I am not a "one trick pony" but I like stability in my life and don't want to jump around from job to job and industry to industry.

I have received several job leads for both marketing and teaching from lots of awesome friends over the past two weeks. There are pros and cons to both "roads" in front of me and I am not sure if one road is better than the other - they are just different. Of course I don't actually have any job offerings at this point, so I may be putting the cart before the horse.

The perfect Melissa job would be one that combines teaching and marketing! I would absolutely love to be the Yearbook/Newspaper/Photography/Publications teacher for a school and work with students on creating their own products. My high school Yearbook teacher comes to mind when I think about this type of job - wonder if she'll be retiring anytime soon?

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.