The Tongues of Men

How long is too long to spend on getting to where you really want to be?

Is it better to spend 2 years working on something that you really want to accomplish or get a mediocre job that pays the bills right now?

What if it turned out to be 5 years? Or 10? Or 20?

Medics commit to a decade of learning to get to the point where they are more or less doing what they wanted to do. Even then they can specialise and retrain with more learning and more exams and more work. You've got to want that to go through with it.

I know someone who trained as a teacher but she really wanted to be an architect. Retraining in her early 20s would have meant 7 more years of learning and lots more debt. A scary prospect but fast forward 7 years (and time flies, we all know that) and she would have been 30 and looking for architect positions - bottom rung of the ladder, sure - but architect positions, and starting to pay off the debt. By 40, and then 50, who knows what she could be doing?

Instead she chose 40 years more teaching on teachers' pay. Both options had a bearing on what she would be doing at 50, not just the architect route. (Of course, teaching is not a mediocre job, especially not if it is your dream - but for her, it was definitely second best).

Failure does not make it a bad decision

If you were guaranteed success how long would you work for it? Of course this is a mug's game. The success part is (mostly) out of our control. That was always the deal. We can only do our part and hope for success. If we don't get it, we are however-many-years-it-was wiser and more experienced to go for success again. In that sense we can't lose. We either gain success or experience that counts towards it.

But it wasn't a bad decision just because we couldn't predict the future.

We have to make the decision now, with no hindsight. And surely, if the decision now is between pursuing a dream – something that connects with you on the inside, something that brings you alive at times – and a mediocre job; then no amount of failure in the future gets to claim that it was a bad decision to go for the dream.

So how long is too long for your dream?

I ask because I've been working on my first novel for two years now, part time. It will be at least another year before it is finished and then it may not be very good or be of interest to any publishers or readers. In which case I'll have to write another one. I dislike the long timescale involved but then I dislike waiting for dinner. Do I really have a choice?

Sebastian Faulks wrote two novels which were precisely that (of no interest to publishers). His third and final attempt got published. Worth it?

Jonathan Franzen took 9 years to produce 'Freedom' – dark times by the sound of it – but an acclaimed novel at the end. Worth it?

Jennifer Donnelly worked for 10 years, writing on the side, being rejected by every publishing house in New York, until finally her first book was published. She later won the Carnegie prize. Worth it?

How long is too long for you?