Today was a good day. For the past nine or ten months I’ve been in burn-out mode, particularly over the past few months. Lacking motivation in the face of overwhelming work. The point of final burn-out is always when something happens to pull you out of your little myopic slice o’ life, I guess, and grants you a new perspective on what you do. This can be a bad thing – it can remind you that what you do is largely meaningless (or even worse, not just meaningless but harmful). But sometimes it’s a really good thing – it reminds you that what you do is unique and valuable.
I think about how unhappy I was in school – not just in college, but since elementary school, where I couldn’t sit still for more than 20 minutes, the first day I ever received homework in first grade and the distinct memory of choosing not to complete that homework; going to the nurse’s office every single day because I was so bored, spending more time in remedial math classes practicing my “thoughtful” expression than I ever did on actually trying to learn math. I hated school. Mostly I hated the responsibility of self-discipline that school required.
I was really into William Gibson in high school, and I read Pattern Recognition when I was a sophomore in college. I was immediately drawn to Cayce Pollard. And to me, as someone who truly loved the internet and cultural analysis but had no context or outlet for what to do with that love, Cayce was a beacon. Until I read Pattern Recognition, the only thing I’d ever really wanted to do with my life was play music. CayceP came to represent my ideal future state – the person I wanted to be, from both a professional and personal perspective. The only problem was that I had no idea how to get there.
When I graduated, I had no idea how to pursue that dream. I got hired as a writer at a tiny suburban startup in Chicago, quit after six months in light of a jefe-esque boss, spent five months of 2008 unemployed, and then, by some miracle, got hired by my first agency as a cultural researcher.
The agency world was a revelation for me, from a productivity standpoint. Having a set schedule, having tasks, having a PROCESS for structuring my days. All of it brought me both peace and purpose. I cringed at the idea of corporate America, but not as much as you might think – this was 2008 and 2009.
The next three years involved a jump to a new company, a shift in my focus from broader cultural research to strategic planning, yadda yadda. Lots of stuff. I work a lot, as do most people I know. Some of the work I do is not fulfilling, but some of it is incredibly fulfilling. The work I presented today – solely my own, something I’ve been building for almost a year, and something that I had the chance to present for multiple hours by myself to clients – falls into the latter category. It transcends the project, really – but the end product and reception of it was a gut-check, in terms of remembering where I started. I don’t really set goals for myself – I don’t have a one year plan, or five year plan – but the CayceP thing was an exception. Today I realized that I’m pretty much doing what she did. It’s so much fun, and I’m so lucky that I get to do it.
Anyway, forgive me for this post – it probably sounds like gloating or bragging, but it’s not intended. I guess one thing I’m trying to say is that I was a fuck-up for most of my life in regards to responsibility and schoolwork, and I thought I always would be, even in my adult life. But people change and the world changes, and the things that you really loved as a kid (the things that made you unproductive or distracted or downright weird) might be the things that you actually get to spend your time doing as an adult. Not all the time. Not perfectly. I’m definitely REALLY bad at some of the things I do. But some things I’m good at. At least for a few years. I’m lucky.
