Post College: Realizing they were talking about you…
In college I was a big dreamer. I wanted to be a movie director, but short of that an editor. Originally I had planned after graduation to move to L.A. and just “make it happen.” Nobody could say that with a little bit of talent, a little bit of creativity, and some luck I might not find George Lucas knocking on the door one day. It all seemed very DO-able in college.
In school there is a natural structure for success. The tools are just laying around for you to pickup and there are dozens of people there to help you be successful. After all that is the privilege that you are paying for. In every classroom there is someone dying to give away validation and praise. The idea that life would be any different didn’t occur to me. Considering it now, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because dammit I had a PURPOSE. I had a dream. Whatever happened it would be the strength of that vision that would carry me through any hardship.
Then, I graduated and ran face to ass with reality. The first whiff of truth came when I had trouble finding a job for several months (“B…but…I’m so talented?”) after college and ended up in retail. After a year or two, I moved to San Francisco and got a help-desk job (the people who maintain a company’s computers) at a TV station. I considered this a tremendous boon. After I had gotten the attention of a few department heads, I would wow them with my demo and sidestep from I.T. right into a career.
"The Bug"
I landed an interview with the head of the editing department there. During our 30 minutes together one Thursday afternoon I showed him my demo reel, expressed my enthusiasm, and told him how much I wanted to get into editing. After I was talked out, he stared at the table for a moment considering. Then he smiled and said, “All right. Well, we can start you at 20 hours a week. 7.50 an hour. Putting the bug on clips during the overnight shift. Do that for long enough and show you can grind away at an editing station for a few months and we’ll maybe see about something else.”
Wait...you mean it's expensive to live here? GTFO.
Compared to what I was making at the time, taking his offer would have meant a 200 percent pay cut, to say nothing about half the total hours. I didn’t know how anyone who actually would TAKE that position could afford to live in San Francisco. I thought about it for a moment and was astonished that any of the editors in the building were actually working with that salary. A bit of anger started to set in. What he was offering was beneath me. Didn’t this guy see from my demo reel how talented I was? Hell, I didn’t even want to edit the stuff they were putting on the channel, I just wanted to be an “editor” and get out of I.T. It was crushing. I felt shamed and yet indignant. And in that moment, though I hadn’t yet realized it, I started to give up on editing.
After a few months it became apparent that because I’d been so attached to the notion of getting into movies or video production for so long, I didn’t know what to do. My girlfriend and I applied to teach English in Japan. We both got it and I promptly panicked and decided not to go. Feeling aimless and a little lost I convinced my girlfriend that we should move back to Colorado so she could get the Masters she wanted with in-state tuition. “I’ll spend the time figuring out whats next,” I reassured her.
That was two years ago. Since then I’ve been working in telephone technical support. At this point it’s been almost 7 years since I’ve edited anything substantial. My demo reel is moldy, my skill-set is ambiguous – and I’ll be 31 this year. Mostly when I go home, I play games, spend time with friends, and hangout with my girlfriend. I enjoy and love these things of course, but whenever the question of what’s next in my career had fought it’s way up from the basement of my unconscious, I’ve lapsed into a brief and inexplicable depression.
But then, just recently I read two things that stuck with me. The first is a completely surprising article from Cracked.com. Normally Cracked is a bastion of dick jokes and silly top ten lists, a grown ups Mad Magazine. But I found this one surprisingly insightful:
How the Karate Kid Ruined the Modern World
I highly recommend you read the whole thing. Here is a relevant excerpt:
We have a vague idea in our head of the “price” of certain accomplishments, how difficult it should be to get a degree, or succeed at a job, or stay in shape, or raise a kid, or build a house. And that vague idea is almost always catastrophically wrong.
Accomplishing worthwhile things isn’t just a little harder than people think; it’s 10 or 20 times harder. Like losing weight. You make yourself miserable for six months and find yourself down a whopping four pounds. Let yourself go at a single all-you-can-eat buffet and you’ve gained it all back.
Then just yesterday, I was reading another article that got under my skin a bit. It’s from the Chicago Tribune:
The Downside to Teen Self-Esteem
…[she] belongs to a generation of teens for whom praise has often come as readily as oxygen. They’ve been bathed from the cradle in affirmations and awards meant to boost their self-esteem — and, by extension, their prospects in life.But some who research the psychology of teens have concluded that this trend, born of good intentions in the Age of Aquarius, has had toxic effects. By their estimation, today’s young people have been praised so much that some flail at their first taste of criticism or failure. Others develop a keen sense of privilege, believing they’ll coast into a golden future regardless of their actual talents, accomplishments or willingness to work.
Reading it again, I got a sickly feeling. And then it dawned on me: they’re talking about me. All at once I understood how colossally arrogant and self-entitled I have been . In hindsight, I can’t remember ever accomplishing anything really HARD that I didn’t already love to do before I started. In most things that I have been successful at, I was for the most part already naturally good at them and didn’t have to try very hard. Consequently at some point I got it in my head then that work wasn’t supposed to be difficult. Which is why the last seven years have been such a mystery to me.
Like many in our media saturated culture, when I was young I adopted the notion that we all had a calling. That was the career that took advantage of whatever you were naturally good at. Success in life then was simply going to be a matter of finding that calling and sliding right in behind it’s desk. If things were too hard then you just weren’t doing it right.
Hilarious...until you realize it's about you.
Since I hadn’t found “it” yet, I picked jobs that were less money but also less work and responsibility. That was preferable to having to bust my ass at something that wasn’t “fulfilling” (the word tastes a little acidic now.) When things have gotten tough I’ve bitched and cried and switched jobs. In my present position I have told friends before that a monkey could do my job, and yet sometimes I do my job poorly because I “just don’t wanna.” The inherent implications of this make me cringe.
“This isn’t really what I’m doing, this is just what I’m doing until my ship comes in.”
Even now considering this, my propensity to just complain and resist difficulty is already kicking in. The realization that you’re an alcoholic doesn’t make the urge to drink go away.
I guess what I’m saying is it occurs to me today that I never learned how to be a hard worker. I had quite a number of dreams and aspirations, but was totally unwilling to suffer for them. Now that the thought occurs to me, I’m not sure where to start.
But that 20 hour a week opportunity putting the bug on video clips sounds so much better than it did, especially seeing what hasn’t transpired in the 3 years since.
All right. Enough self-flagellation and regret. What’s next?
TLDNR: I just realized the value of a hard days work.
This was originally a post on a forum I frequent called the GTX. Given the topic and the fact that I hadn’t written anything for BF in a bit I thought it was fair game for an entry here. You can read the original post along with the great comments from other members here.
Listen to this entry:
Sorry for the ugly formatting after that second quote there. And somehow the article borked the navigation? DAMMIT wordpress.
You misspelled flagellation in your closing sentence.
At least you’re self aware enough to realize the bind you are in. It doesn’t fix anything or make anything better but you’re leaps and bounds ahead a good majority of kids these (though I acknowledge you’re 31 and not a kid). Colleges should cut the shit and make it mandatory for everybody to go live in a 3rd world country before you graduate college. So people understand how hard life really sucks and how kosher we have things over here so we appreciate things, even if a shitty opportunity to do something related in your field of study. Keep your head up, and good luck in your endeavors.
Thanks Jay. Fixed.
DBAG – Thanks for the good word. Appreciated your comments.
You know, this is a real tragedy. As a 29 year old I run across kids who have the exact same self-entitlement issues all the time across the net and across the country, but for the most part San Franciscans aren’t so much like you. At least not the ones I’ve met. They bust their asses with innovation and hard work.
I’m originally Canadian and I’ll tell you that school is not a World of gratuitous positivity like that which you described – it sucked and since it costs 1/5 what it costs here in the US, it’s mostly a matter of whether or not you measure up to their standards than “getting what I paid for.”
Your article makes me angry. It makes me despise what kids are becoming. It makes me despise the US (and all the entitled Canadian kids growing up in a more Americanized World).
The Chinese and the Indians are going to destroy us in business and lifestyle in the next 20 years. Ho hum.
Cool blog. You’ve got almost four hundred comments over at Reddit, though I haven’t looked at them. Obviously you struck a nerve.
I agree that the Hollywood version of screwing around, pulling an all nighter, and Winning the Big Game is lame.
But the Chicago Tribune, what are kids these days coming to, I swear I’ve read a similar one penned in just about every decade of recorded history. Money is huge between basic needs the struggle for survival, but once past that threshold, most are as miserable or happy over time regardless power, money, or accomplishment. You sound like you like your life, even if you think you haven’t lived up to your potential. Not many do, but oh, well.
Knowing that you want an outlet for creativity, and knowing that you can have various ones can lead to a life of gratitude.
But if you start mouthing the Tribune article to your kids, they’ll roll their eyes and say (rightly), Whatever, Dad.
You still have a sense of play, of sincerity, and wonder. And a growing sense of humility. Could be worse.
Why don’t you just keep trying?
You have a roof over your head, you have food, you are in good health. You are far richer than the majority of people in the world.
Giving up is one of the most selfish things you can do.
You honestly have nothing, NOTHING, to lose by trying again.
Just keep on trying man. You will make it.
Just keep on trying.
You need to at least skim Mindset by Carol Dweck. I had a similar epiphany several months ago after reading a NYTimes article similar to the Tribune one. Dweck has been researching this phenomenon for some time and lays it out very simply in her book.
Hey, thanks for writing this.
On the positive side, you did mention that there were things you were naturally good at, even if you didn’t work hard at them. That sort of implies that had you put the effort in you could have done really well.
I think that’s a much better baseline to start with than simply not being able to work hard. Too bad learning how to work hard is hard work, haha.
It’s doable stuff though, and the internet’s awash with how-tos and success stories. Unfortunately, 95% of that advice consists of hackneyed clichés. And even worse, I suppose, is the fact that most of them are true.
Good content and execution. Don’t flagellate yourself over the flagellation misspelling.
I was interested to hear that San Franciscans don’t strike that one reader as lazy or entitled. He happens to live in a city that you can’t make it in if you aren’t among the hard working. It’s got a social structure that rewards those that aspire, but penalizes those who don’t. I’d hate to be down on my luck for too long there, though. Denver is a city where you can get away with being lazy; half the reason I live here. I like the easy life. I’m not embarrassed to admit it, nor am I so ambitious to desire to work my ass off to get into a job where I’ll have to work my ass off in it for the rest of my life, even if it is among my talent-set. Sometimes I think it’s just time to acknowledge your laziness and dwell there until the time for it is full.
And sure the rest of the world is tough, but even almost starving Haitians know that being productive and successful has to be balanced with being rested and fulfilled in play. Americans are figuring this out after the Europeans. The Chinese will be the next in line for this revelation.
Heh. Thanks for reading Luke.
Reminds me a little of what this user Emion said on the forum where this post originated:
I learned a long time ago that the key to happiness is setting the bar low. Lower your standards, lower your expectations, and while you’re at it, lower everyone else’s expectations of you. I used to joke that I’ve made everyone around me expect so little of me, that they’re truly praiseworthy and grateful when I actually accomplish something. The best part? It isn’t a joke, and everyone around me is at least a little happier with me for it. The key here is setting a believable bar. Make it known that you know what you’re doing and you know how to do stuff, but also make it known that it only happens on your time.
Set your bar too high, and not only is it harder to jump up there, but you’ll feel like a total shithead when you can’t do it. Moreover, there’ll come a time in your life when you simply aren’t able to do it anymore. How will you feel then? You know what the end result of not being able to get over that bar anymore is? That’s right: you’ll have to set it lower anyway.
Aim low, and don’t really aim very often.”