I love my job. I find my job fulfilling. I enjoy doing the work my job calls for.
I feel so blessed to be able to say that.
I’ve been out of college for almost four years now and my plans for my “career” have changed over that time. I’ve been able to try a variety of things. In the last four years I’ve worked in marketing and development departments at two different regional theaters, been a camp counselor, an event coordinator, an actor, a producer, and worked at a film festival. Of course I’ve been writing the whole time as well.
At this time, I can say that I’ve built the life that I want. That doesn’t mean things are perfect, or that there is no room for growth. But I like my life. I am content. I feel meaning in the way I spend each day. And that is not something I take for granted. And I did not get to this point without inner work.
I had reasonably liked all of my jobs since graduating. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to be doing but it was in my “field”, and I was on a path. I was doing work that would someday help me with my lofty career goals. And I was also enjoying bits and pieces and learning new skills along the way.
In February 2020, I started my 4th role since graduating. It was closer to what I wanted to be doing than most of my roles thus far. I felt very aligned. I felt on the right path.
And then the pandemic began.
I’ve written just a bit about how the pandemic inspired a major shift in the way I approached my life, which I know is something many can relate to. It caused me to examine my life and my values. Suddenly, I realized how important it was to me to live near people I loved. I was no longer willing to move wherever a good job awaited, which really changed what I had previously thought for my future. That’s also when I started to learn about abolition. I began to think about it in the context of how our society was responding to COVID– or rather, how poorly we were responding. I was beginning to realize that we needed a whole new way of being in the world. And in Summer 2020 when George Floyd was murdered by the police and the streets erupted in protest, that only made me believe that even more. I realized how important working towards abolition and building a new world was to me, and for the future of us all.
With this new knowledge and perspective, the gap between what I wanted to be doing and what I was doing seemed so large. The gap between what I had previously thought I wanted to be doing in the future and what I now felt I needed to be doing was large as well. What previously was a short path opened to a huge chasm.
I believed in the power of art to make change. But I didn’t believe that I was doing it. I didn’t believe that most of the regional theater industry was doing it. I began to doubt it was even possible to do it within a large non profit institution, where white, rich board members limit the actions that can be taken. Where multimillion dollar endowments sit unused, restricted, while unhoused people sleep in our alleyways. Where we’re expected to keep putting out the same amount of output, (maybe even more as we all pivoted to virtual,) instead of resting and accommodating how the pandemic is impacting us.
After adopting this new outlook, I was miserable. The combination of the pandemic and the realization that I wasn’t doing work I found meaningful was very depressing. Last Winter was the first time I felt I experienced “seasonal depression.” With the vaccine still months away, I spent almost all of my time inside. The combo of little interaction with friends, no sunlight, and having to wake up every day to do work I didn’t find meaningful was crushing me. I would lay in bed and think “is this all there is? For the rest of my life?”
Some people can go to work for 40 hours a week, and then come home and do all the things that matter to them. I respect that. In an ideal world, people would only be doing work that was meaningful to them and contributed to supporting the community. But we don’t live in an ideal world, we live under capitalism. I do not shame anyone for doing work in which the only meaning is that they are able to survive on the paycheck.
But I was privileged enough to dream of something different. So I began earnestly searching for just that.
I very slowly looked for a new job over the course of six months. In that time, I think I only applied to six or seven jobs. Far different from my job searches of years before, I was only applying to jobs that felt very aligned with the work I wanted to be doing and the environment I wanted to be in. It wasn’t like my job was uniquely bad. On the contrary, it actually was better than others in the industry in many ways. Which is why I knew I needed to leave the industry! Simply shifting to a different non profit theatre institution was not going to fix the problems I had in my mind.
I actually didn’t have a job when I quit. I had done two interviews and a paid work sample for Donkeysaddle Projects. In truth, it was starting to feel like my dream job. I wanted to work there so bad. But they told me they intended to have a second round of work samples, so I thought it would be at least weeks to come until I had the news. But I just couldn’t handle my job anymore. I had a short term gig at a film fest later in the summer that I knew would help me pay my rent, a tiny bit of savings, and a determination to hustle. I had been thinking about not wanting to work at my job for months. It was time to take the leap.
Two hours after I quit, when I was praising myself for doing something I thought I’d NEVER have the courage to do… I got an email that DSP was ready to hire me after all. No second work sample needed.
It felt like affirmation. It felt like the universe, my ancestors, the planets…. Everything aligned to affirm my path. To let me know that I did the right thing by choosing to follow my values and passions.
That was eight months ago and I only feel more aligned since. My quality of life has changed tenfold. I am so much happier doing work I find meaning in. I am so much happier working in an environment that understands us all as human beings living through an incredibly traumatic time. I am so much happier with freedom in my schedule, with time to work on personal projects. I am thrilled. I am content.
I’m grateful for Donkeysaddle Projects. But I don’t intend to make this about how happy I am to work there. The reason I found this perfect position for me is because of the work I did for myself. In December of 2020, I wrote in my journal that I was so unhappy at work, but was probably going to stay there for another year. My reasoning was that it was silly to rock the boat and try to find a new job during a pandemic when so many people are out of work. That I wanted to have a longer term gig on my resume. That this job was laying the groundwork for future things… etc. etc.
But then about a week later I said… why? Why am I choosing to be unhappy now for some future that doesn’t exist? I don’t live in the future. I live in the present and have to deal with how unhappy I feel every day. Some would say that those sacrifices are the key to success but I disagree. There is no success that I am looking toward that requires a lifetime of unhappiness to get there. How could that feel like success at all?
I got clear on my values and prioritized myself. And now I’m reaping the rewards.
There are many realities of the world we live in that don't make this easy to do. I’m trying to fight some of those realities in the work that I do with DSP. But I’m very aware that this is a privilege, to live this way. I’m very grateful.
I feel more aligned than I ever have. My life is as close to my values as it has ever been. I’m so grateful to be able to feel this way.
I hope you are able to do something to bring yourself a little closer to alignment.
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