the endlessly optimistic William, who knew how much his
story meant to his fans. He was living his dream and sharing
it with the world.
In 2011, though, that dream died when William ended
his music career by accepting a job as a technical crime
analyst.^24 Was he giving up on his dream? Weren’t the
millions of fans proof he had found his calling, that music
was what he was supposed to be doing with his life? Maybe
not. In an earlier interview, he told a reporter, “I may
disappoint you with saying this, but I’m actually hoping to
become a math teacher someday.” In the same interview, he
shared his love for the Pythagorean theorem and said that
his favorite mathematician had to be Euclid.^25
Sometimes it just takes a little time to find out what you
are meant to do with your life. As I watched William light
up while talking about math, it’s no wonder he became an
analyst whose daily responsibilities include calculating the
probability of criminal activity.^26 In that earlier interview,
he offered clues as to where his true passion lay, saying
things like engineering “takes even greater dedication” than
music.^27
Does that really sound like someone who’s destined to
be a musician?
“My passion has always been math,” he told a reporter
after his almost decade-long stint with fame. “It just took a
while to end up as my career.”^28
Through the long and windy road toward his calling,