While many news sources have often given some attention to the highly educated grads who have gone off to pursue less-than-ideal places of employment as proof of this economy’s dismal situation, I have not seen as much attention paid to an interesting trend I am seeing amongst my own peers. To fully understand it, I encourage you to follow along in a quick roleplay.

You were a brilliant student in high school but you still needed a bit of help to pay for school. Like many who understand the value of a good education, you took out a couple of student loans to cover the total costs of your education. You have spent the last four years of your life studying your passion at a prestigious college/university. At the end of it all, you may have been published, won a couple academic prizes, or even graduated with particular honors. After having applied to numerous jobs and becoming stressed at the oncoming storm of student loan repayment, you decide that you need to have some form of income to at least help you get by in the meantime. The last thing you would want is to have to start paying off debts without a solid source of income.

And so you settle into a less-than-ideal job. It may be waiting tables, working in a kitchen, landscaping, or you may be providing your labor at a warehouse. While it is not my intention to denigrate any of these positions, I ask you to consider how you would feel after having spent four years of your life and anywhere between $100,000 to $200,000 to fund your education into a field for which you cared deeply. Would you be upset? Depressed? Trapped?

I have seen and experienced many of these emotions, whether through peers or firsthand. In any case, the trend that is emerging is not one of continued negativity; it is an indicator of determined optimism. Perhaps your sentiment at the end of the aforementioned circumstances is not one of dreary emotions; it may instead be a longer period of contemplation.

You may believe that your education is meaningful and significant. As such, you are not ready to cast it aside while you work in an industry completely unrelated to your field of study, be it in the humanities, social sciences, or hard sciences. Perhaps you really did love what you studied and you wish to have some way to continue along that passion.

As a result, you may take on volunteer opportunities in your field of study. You may do freelance on the side from your 9-5. Unfortunately, there is not much (or any) money coming in from these side projects. So why do them? Is it because you like working twice as much even if you are hardly making any more?

I believe the reason is something more significant. While we can find ways to earn money working in a variety of different industries, it is those particular fields we love that give our lives meaning. And perhaps, if we keep pouring ourselves into those fields that we have given so much, then maybe we will receive something in return.