A Startling Realization

Growing up, I always felt the need to excel at everything. EVERYTHING. Especially things that other people could (seemingly) do so easily. Thus, when my dad bought a boat and tried to convince us all to enjoy water skiing, and then tried to show off as being a 'natural', I felt the need to be EVEN BETTER and get up on my first try from the water. Or when my sister became interested in acting, I had to join the drama club a.s.a.p. and eventually work my way up to being a lead in the school play. Or when my other sister started to learn guitar and then gave it up, I started learning and had to be better than anyone in the family at guitar.

This has been a long standing trend.

This crazy obsession with being the best at everything I do has forced me to do a lot of things, get good enough to declare myself the victor and move on to something else. But along the way, I began to just intrinsically enjoy all of these different things, and now I've got about a million interests and general ability in most things and a passion for all of them. Sounds pretty great, right? Wrong.

Now that it's come time to choose a career, I'm hopelessly stuck. This has become my own personal Buridan's Ass situation. I'm paralyzed with the plethora of options. I've come to the rather upsetting realization that I can't be a singer/songwriter/actor/writer/artist/photographer/psychologist/web designer/interior designer/editor/director/manager/yoga instructor/marketing guru. That's too many slashes! What's worse is as I was writing that, I kept being like 'done' and then going back and adding another and even now I can think of more but I dare not add them to my list of slashy occupations.

I can't do everything, and I can't do nothing, but I can't choose one. So, until I can figure it out...I'm in a band, sent a script to a film studio and am going to continue writing this blog. However, none of these things pay. Not yet anyway. I think that probably the best job for me would be some sort of manager of all things creative, but in order to do that I have to work my way up and start from a specific thing...that's too specific!

So...I'm applying for two jobs at the moment that I would like to get: a program assistant at a community development organization and a management trainee at the new Apple Store opening up in a nearby town. Hopefully both will allow me enough free time to pursue the million and one other things I like. In the meantime, I might get back into photography. It's been too long...