Image by Niezwyciezony (License CC BY-SA 2.0)
If you’re like me, the way(s) you make money have almost nothing to do with your actual passion. This is true for a lot of folks—I actually don’t know that many people in the workforce who are doing exactly what they want to do. I have a lot of friends who have jobs that are just jobs. What they love to do is hike, read, be with friends, watch good films, travel, etc.
Their jobs facilitate what they love to do. When they aren’t working, they can do these things. When what you love to do cannot really be monetized, or when you don’t have the kind of passion to pursue what you love as your main career, you usually get a job that you don’t love so you can pay the bills and then some. It’s not always great, but our culture teaches you to get through it. I by no means say this is right or good or the best way to do things, but it is what is “done” by the majority of people. Happy hours exist just for you.
However, for artists of all different stripes, when there is a sliver of a chance that you could get paid for what you love to do most, and your life has worked out so you made the decision to see if you can do that, you usually work jobs that suck in a certain special kind of way. They are “flexible” (read: 4 hours a week, or between the hours of 10pm and 2am). They are “fun” (you have to talk to strangers for hours which depletes you emotionally and physically). They are “low stakes” (they pay you jack SHIT). Every now and then there is that fabulous remote gig where you can work whenever/wherever and actually use your intellect in a way that leaves you with creative energy to spare. These are few and far between. I have found it once and it was a fleeting, beautiful affair.
“I no longer have the option of endlessly watching Battlestar Galactica and lamenting my life decisions.”
At the moment, I have five jobs. I am a nanny/chauffeur for a family close by, I tutor the ACT/AP tests, I edit self-published memoirs online, I cocktail serve at a bar, and I hand out samples of edible cookie dough at Whole Foods (to try some, come visit me or go to www.edoughble.com). One or two of these will eventually win out as the most lucrative/sensible for my life.
I was broke my first few months living in LA, and am very grateful to have these jobs. They have been my lifeline, literally, because I can now sort of pay rent, and also because I feel like I have legs to stand on. I am employed. I have places I need to be. I no longer have the option of endlessly watching Battlestar Galactica and lamenting my life decisions. Now I just watch one episode at a time, and wonder if/when Lee and Starbuck are going to end up together (no spoilers please), while I’m working at one of these jobs.
Though grateful, I generally hate the doing of these jobs. They’re not the worst. But I don’t ever get excited about them, and they certainly don’t ignite my soul. If someone could pay me a weekly stipend which required me to wake up every morning and write for four hours, then spend the other four auditioning and honing my acting skills, leaving me enough time to volunteer and have a social life, I’d be over the moon.
This is not reality. In reality, until I find that high paying, incredibly fun, perfect unicorn online project, or until I sell a script/get cast in a national commercial or big budget film, I will be doing these jobs in some capacity. Or jobs like them. Flexible, fun, low stakes. So, how does one stomach this? How does one actually try and be excellent at jobs that aren’t what one loves to do most?
You get through them because they aren’t your whole life. You don’t let your identity be dictated by what you do for money. You remember to keep your eye on the actual prize, which is the chance to practice your art. You scribble notes about your next screenplay or whatever thoughts you have on a notepad in the bathroom of the bar or when there aren’t Whole Foods Beverly Hills shoppers being like, “Wait, this is actually cookie dough? No way, wait, Jessica you have to try this. Jessica, get over here and try this.”
You remember that none of this lasts forever, and each moment you are alive is a precious gift and that gratitude, as annoying as it sounds coming from (mostly white/smug) well-meaning self-help book authors, is the secret to all happiness. As Cicero (one of the OG self-help book authors) said, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” Remembering those words and truly understanding what gratitude means, will pull you right up and out of the muck of self-loathing and psychological misery.
You are excellent at these jobs because they are easy and because excellence is something that bleeds over into everything you do. You’ve learned this the hard way. Above all, you are gentle with yourself, especially when you spill a rum and coke on someone, or you can’t get the nine year old to get dressed for basketball practice.
Day jobs suck, and there’s no romance in them (okay, maybe a little sometimes—just a little). Sometimes they feel like torture. The only consolation is that they are a wonderful way to practice gratitude and staying present—two necessary ingredients for creating anything meaningful.
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Natalie Houchins is a graduate of Northwestern University, with
degrees in Theatre and Gender & Sexuality Studies. She is a writer and
actress based out of LA, who is perennially homesick for Austin, TX.
She currently spends her free time hiking, watching Battlestar
Galactica and resisting the Trump administration. For more information, visit her website: www.nataliehouchins.com.
Natalie, I go back and forth on this a lot. However, I think as much as we’d like to accept these kinds of mindless jobs are just “the way it is” for artists and those who can’t pursue their passions as a career, I just can’t. I believe the people who ultimately succeed personally – financially is incidental – risk everything: their health, their relationships with friends and family, their income, their housing, EVERYTHING. Only by doing this can they truly turn their passion into a career. I just haven’t found anything that’s driven me to do that.