A rant about making decisions for the future

While randomly reading old archives on a recently discovered blog, To Love, Honor, and Vacuum, I found this quote:

"Just for fun, I recently asked readers on my Facebook page about the worst advice they had ever been given.
Many people seemed to regret their education. They didn’t pursue dreams because they were supposed to go to university, and now they have debt and no real joy in their jobs. Others, of course, regretted not getting an education in the first place."

This is the dilemma, isn't it? When you're trying to make choices about your future, do you invest in the education everyone thinks you should get, and potentially regret the sink of time, energy, and resources? Or do you forego the education to pursue what you think you want to do (or what you think God wants you to do), and later on have regrets because you aren't qualified for the jobs you want and your "dream" was just a passing whim of young adulthood?

I know that a lot of people - the prudent, cautious, "always have a back-up plan" people - advocate getting that education no matter what. Even if you don't plan on using it, apparently, it might be good to have at some unknown time in the future - if it isn't hopelessly outdated by then (for instance, getting a masters in a computing field now might not be that helpful twenty-five years from now when you're done being a stay-at-home mom and are looking to reenter the workforce!), or if your desires and outlook on life haven't totally changed over the years (somehow I don't think I'm going to be exactly the same person, with the same goals and priorities, when I'm nearing fifty... I'm hoping I'll have learned a lot more about life and about who I am!). Honestly, to me, it seems like it could be just a waste of your time, especially if it isn't something you're passionate about.

Steve Jobs, in his famous Stanford commencement speech, said this:

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

While I think it is really important to seek what God desires for you, and not just follow your heart blindly without His guidance, there is still a sense in which I emphatically agree with his words. If there is something your heart is burning for you to do, there is no point at all in getting a degree in a semi-related subject with better marketability just to have a back-up plan. I feel that if you're going to pursue something because it is your dream and the call of God in your life, you should pursue it wholeheartedly, without reservation or fear. If God is calling you in a specific direction - if your heart is longing to walk a certain path with Him - then put your hand to the plow and do not look back. Let Him be your safety net and your back-up plan. Trust Him with your worries and your fears and your questions about the future. If you can put your trust in a graduate degree to bring you food and financial stability in a time of crisis, surely you can find enough faith to trust the God and Creator of the universe to manage those same things.

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." - Matthew 6:28-33