About nine months ago, I graduated college with a degree in journalism, a fresh and naïve sense of invincibility, and the gung-ho, take-no-prisoners idea — no, it was a known fact to me and anyone who knew me well — that I was going to be a writer.
And not just any writer…I was going to be THE next Chelsea Handler.
I accepted a position as a writer at E! Online in Los Angeles, packed up all of the crap I’d compiled over the last 22 years and drove my car 2,023 miles across the country to the elusive City of Dreams to find job success in a place where I knew less people than I could count on my right hand.
As a born-and-bred Midwesterner who attended school in the South, my heart was split into two equal pieces that resided in Chicago and in North Carolina; I didn’t want to go anywhere else. But I knew that it was the “right” thing to do to go out to California and write for E! It was the “right” step, a foot in the door; at the very least a kickass resume booster and at the most my “in” to become Chelsea’s successor.
The day I arrived in Los Angeles, I received an email from my future boss at E! It read, “Kaelyn — we are sorry to inform you that your position as a writer at E! Online no longer exists due to budget cuts. We wanted to inform you as soon as possible so that you can make proper adjustments.”
I threw up.
What was I supposed to do now?! How was I supposed to become a writer when I lost my writing job — THE writing job that was supposed to kick-start my career — before it even started?
After the initial shock wore off, I was finally able to digest the big ol’ slice of humble pie I had been given: I was unemployed in a foreign place and had no idea how to start networking. The four people I knew were also transplants in LA and obviously had no writing connections whatsoever. I was traumatized (which is a very, very enormous understatement).
So, I did the only (dreaded) thing I could think of: apply to every online job I could find that remotely related to writing. Through my blind applications, I met some people (fellow writers and guardian angels, really), including editors of UrbanDaddy and Rundown LA and writers for Gawker, who were able to provide me with encouragement and direction toward finding job success.
During my months of unemployment, I joined a memoir-writing class that met every Wednesday with an eclectic group of people (retired special education teachers, publicists, ex-TV producers, Pilates instructors, salsa dancers, actors) who were equally as passionate about writing as I was. I kept a super private journal. I became part of uPod, an online writers’ forum. I wrote a few chapters of the book I plan to someday publish. I continued writing posts for my online blog. I kept writing and writing and writing, dedicating my days to exercising that oh-so-important writing muscle.
I ended up landing a temporary internship at a public relations agency so that I could pay my rent and continue looking for a full-time job. But by the time it was December, my internship was up and of the 42 jobs I had applied for, I had gotten zero. It was time to reevaluate. Although all of this was incredibly defeating, especially since I had formerly excelled at pretty much everything I’d ever done and expected a dream writing career and job success to be personally delivered to me by Ms. Handler herself on a silver platter immediately once I arrived to LA, I learned something about myself, something that would have formerly horrified me but makes such perfect sense to me now.
And that is this: I love to write — it will forever be my passion — but “writer” may not necessarily be my profession.
It was a scary realization, but once I came to the conclusion that I could write AND pursue something else, my entire perspective changed from a self-created faux-road-to-happiness tunnel vision to a vast, endless meadow of opportunity.
It’s all about balance — balancing passion with the need for income.
What a magical revelation! Understanding the scarcity of writing positions in Los Angeles as well as my actual need for money, I began to apply to a wide variety of jobs that incorporated aspects of writing or that would allow me to write on the side, much like all of my memoir-writing classmates had done. By refocusing on what I wanted from a job, I had thousands more opportunities that were appealing to me. And by late December, I had landed an entry-level communications position at the advertising agency Leo Burnett in Chicago. This job will allow me to both incorporate writing into my daily work and write on the side. Which couldn’t be cooler.
You, too, can derive job success and fulfillment by following these three steps:
1. Identify your passion and never forget what you truly love to do.
Your passion can be anything! What’s cool about your passion is that it is what YOU love. You should never have to compromise doing what you love for a job.
2. Find a job that allows you to either incorporate your passion into your everyday work or have time for it on the side (nights, weekends, personal days, etc.) Or both.
For example, if you love playing the guitar and don’t see a career as a musician as economically feasible, take music classes every Tuesday, or give yourself 30 minutes a day or three hours on Sunday to play, or volunteer at a local music and arts center. Even if your job has nothing to do with guitars or music, these routine glimpses of happiness could keep you satisfied.
3. Maintain the balance of passion and a need for money…for your own happiness. Seriously.
I’ll be starting my communications job in early February, and I couldn’t be more excited. Who knows where I’ll be in five or ten years? While the future has increasingly become uncertain to me with age, I know one thing I’ll be doing always: writing. And that is enough to keep me motivated and optimistic. Isn’t that the definition of having job success anyway?
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