Question 110: Switch arts

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Your formal education comes first. Until it is completed, the martial arts should just be a sideline that you use to relax and have fun, just as with other sports or hobbies. Few people make much money in the martial arts; it is more an avocation than it is a vocation. Once you have the education and an established career, then you can pursue the martial arts again.

Black belt is a goal all martial art students want to achieve, but, as with other goals, the pursuit of the goal is more meaningful than actually reaching the goal. While in pursuit of a goal, the goal seems to be a great thing to achieve, but once you reach it, you usually find that it is just a another step in life. I had a career in the Navy. In the Navy, new recruits look up to chief petty officers and wish they could be one and have all the benefits of the rank. However, one doesn't suddenly become a chief; it is along arduous path to become a chief. Along the path, you have to achieve each rank leading up to chief, so, by the time you make chief, it is really just one rank up from where you were. There is still some glory and satisfaction in the promotion, but it not what you thought it would be when you first thought about it years before in boot camp.

Make getting the degree your priority, then, with whatever time is left; you can devote some of it to the martial arts.