Dear Elsa,
I am a scholarship student (and senior) at a well-known small liberal arts school. I have been blessed to enjoy the opportunity of exploring my passions through my studies. After high-achieving for years, I now have several career opportunities awaiting action.
Many of the opportunities carry heavy prestige and an “international” focus but with high burn-out potential. I’ve also privately lost much of the idealism necessary to work in such jobs in good faith. However, my family expects me to at least gain a job with prestige, as even my getting to go to this school was a huge step up for us.
At the same time, I feel strongly driven to learn music as it is my secret and true passion. I have already trained successfully in the visual arts and creative writing, so I know the demands of that sort of vocation. I feel absolutely torn.
Do I take one of the “pragmatic” career-track jobs, using my potential to make my family proud? Do I pursue a financially insecure course of “day jobs” to live my dreams and potentially fail? I just don’t know what my “duty” is anymore.
Thanks,
Encumbered Capricorn
United States
Dear Capricorn,
Without a doubt, your duty is to yourself. Your parents had a life. They have their own life now too, and this one is yours to live.
That said, the fact you feel some responsibility towards them is part of your nature. It’s an authentic feature of your personality, so this is why you feel the way you do – and I think you can count on it preventing you from running off to join the circus anytime soon. People are endlessly complex and you are no exception to that, but to try to simplify – this is a quick sketch of you:
- Venus and Mars in Aquarius wants to innovate and make its own rules.
- Pluto in the tenth house wants a powerful job.
- Your packed twelfth house wants to escape – to merge with something universal through music, and your planets in Sagittarius wants to expand via travel and education.
But you are also a triple Capricorn and there is no getting away from that. Your life in large part is about hard work. Your life is a job, and your job is to actualize your entire personality… so I would suggest you forget the idea of drastically amputating this or that part of you and the investment you’ve made in yourself. Instead, think about how you can allow all these parts of yourself expression. Be creative. Working this out is your task this life.
Good luck.