Dear Dr. Perfect,

Should I become a DJ or enter the seminary? I am thirty, and desperately need a direction in life.

Wandering and Lost

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Dear DJ Wanderlust,

It’s never too late to become a DJ. Have you ever queued a series of songs together or made a mixtape? If so, you’re halfway there. Professionally playing music before a captive audience might take some training. If that’s your dream, go for it. If it’s more of just an interest, go for that as well. If it’s merely a phase soon to be relegated to the dustbin of forgotten goals, still place it under consideration. Do you really want to be a DJ, or are you just wasting everyone’s time here?

I once read that direction is important in life. Without it, we’re destined to remain unfulfilled, Netflix-binging cods. The book I read from was called Reaching for the Stars: The Fallacy of Motivational Clichés. It cynically suggests our destinies are pre-ordained. This would mean that if you weren’t meant to be a DJ, there would be nothing you could do to change that. The writer himself claims that he was always meant to write de-motivational books, even though he doesn’t particularly care for the topic.

Ignore the experts, because most of them don’t know what they’re doing. They’re only human, with the exception of the aliens who live among us. The naysayers want to micromanage us and ultimately dissuade us from achieving our dreams. They’ll look at their charts and figures and determine that there’s enough DJs out there as it is. Attend the seminars, hone in your disc jockey skills, and ultimately leave it to fate in the end. You could reach the heights of Coachella or just end up spinning records for college radio stations.

Was I destined to be an advice columnist? With a name like Dr. Perfect, I believe I was. As a child, I was always giving advice to my classmates to solve their problems. My mother would often say, “What makes you so right about everything?” I would tell her that it was destined to be. She understood. She was an advice columnist too, as was my grandfather and his father before him. Perhaps you might find a similar vocation in your family linage. If not, try anyway.

Success in entertainment requires an understanding of the market. My obscure music tastes are far removed from anything current. I don’t like skipping album songs. I don’t like sampling. I don’t even like instruments. I’m into a cappella right now. Talk to other DJs, network, and learn what it takes to make it. Rock artist Beck said it just takes “two turntables and a microphone.” I discarded his music after that song for being too popular.

Most lofty pursuits are abandoned due to time and commitment. I once attended a two-week sushi making course and didn’t do a thing with it after. I was under a lot of pressure at my sales job at the time to deliver these Glengarry leads. At thirty, you still have plenty of time to work things out but not enough time to start over if you should fail miserably. It’s a strange road. The years will pass, and before you know it, you’ll be forty and lost in a permanent state of adolescence. There’s no harm in trying, as they say. Just don’t take that as an endorsement to do whatever you want. Life isn’t some hippie commune. We’ve got to be responsible adults. The more responsible you are, the more social credits you can obtain once they implement communist China’s surveillance system here. Perhaps I spoke too soon. Disregard.

Or you could enter the seminary. There could be some great a cappella singing there.

Dr. Perfect has slung advice across the globe for the last two decades due to his dedication to the uplift of the human condition.