Juan Pablo Villota Rosero

00109247
Composition & Rhetoric
Alejandro Cathey Cevallos

Personal Narrative
Music as a way of life

It’s hard to live out your life doing something that you really love when you live in a

society that is constantly funnelling you into predetermined paths. It can be really hard to

face and defy this pressure specially in the breaking points of your life. However it’s

important to be able to follow your instincts and the human need to do something with

meaning that fulfils you and lets you feel realized. A career in an artistic medium can often

represent this situation for many people but can be a very hard path to walk. Knowing this

and being able to work for it even when it implies a lot of sacrifice and uncertainty can be a

really difficult thing to do because our parents and the education system constantly push us to

follow a more stable and secure path and don’t really encourage or prepare us to follow more

unconventional career choices.

I encountered this situation when I was 21 years old and this is how my journey into the

world of music as a career formally began. I was living in my home country of Colombia,

pursuing a degree in Business and International Relations (“Administración de Empresas”

and “Relaciones Internacionales” as they were formally called there in the native language)

and I was already on my 3rd year. Up until that moment I thought I could not be in a better

situation as far as building a prosperous career, I had excellent grades and I was really

thriving in this world however something was still missing. I felt unfulfilled, unable to push

myself to the limit but rather just walking in circles doing something that made me feel

COMPOSITION & RHETORIC PERSONAL NARRATIVE 1

empty, even when succeeding at it. All this pressure eventually built up and I couldn’t take it

any longer, I had to pursue my dream of being a professional musician and living off music,

something that had always been an integral part of my life and was always a huge passion of

mine. I had been playing music since I was a child, I thought I was good at it and nothing

quite moved me like it, so I finally decided to take a leap of faith and go for it.

To pursue this dream I made the decision to move to the city of Quito, Ecuador. I was

looking for a university where I could really develop my skills and push myself so I could

become a professional musician and this was a really hard endeavour. USFQ is a very

expensive school specially in comparison to schools in Colombia and I had to pay for it

myself but the financial burden wasn’t the only, or even the biggest obstacle. Leaving

everything behind including a very secure career path, my family and my whole life in

another country was a huge personal challenge and it took a big psychological toll on me. It

meant following my dream with no guarantee or certainty whatsoever of what would come.

This was my breaking point and music was my passion, my path to fulfilment. I was

extremely determined to follow this dream of mine and even through all the obstacle and

sacrifices I was willing to go for it.

Now, 5 years later after taking this decision, I’m on the verge of graduating from the

“Music Production and Sound” degree and with the possibility of taking just a couple more

classes to get a dual degree in “Music Performance” if I so wished as well. I can honestly say

that I feel completely satisfied with my decision. I was lucky enough to be able to take the

right decisions and meet the right people to be able to reach goals that at one point may have

seemed completely out of reach. Music is a hard business because the uncertainty never goes

away, I still feel it, even after having achieved these goals such as playing in big stages in

front of hundreds of people, meeting and playing with huge artists and developing my skills

to a point where I can really earn my living through music. Now I have much bigger goals

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that seem just as unreachable but my passion and dedication to music keeps me motivated to

keep pursuing this dream and keeps my drive up to keep working extremely hard at it, day in

and day out.

Finally after going through this experience I’ve finally found my pace and my rhythm, I

believe this is a career that can grow with as much attitude and hard work as you are willing

to put into it, never forgetting why are you doing it in the first place. This is what my life has

been about, chasing this dream and never giving up, even when things get rough. I did it for

myself and I was willing to make the sacrifice and now I’m willing to keep living every day

following this dream through the thick and thin of it and keep working hard to make sure the

dream of music keeps growing.

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