It’s been one of those weeks of self-doubt, frustration, stress, unprofessional idiots, regrets, and dealing with a lot of back & forth about what to do & where to go from here. This piece by Rudyard Kipling (it’s for us daughters too!) is exactly what I needed to feel like Aaliyah..and dust myself off & try again.
“If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master; If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools
If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!”
-Rudyard Kipling, If: A Father’s Advice to His Son
So, it’s been quite a while since I’ve written a post & that’s mostly due to the fact that life caught up to me & I was too busy making a list of observations to actually have a chance to sit down & write about ’em.
Jobs. We all either have them, need them, or are retired from them. We either love them, hate them, or are apathetic towards them. For some, they’re a means to an end; for some, they’re the only consistent things in life; for some, they’re the greatest love affairs; and for some, they’re the bane of their existence. So, what’s my input? They suck. Unless of course, you’ve known what you want to do your whole life & were afforded the opportunities to strive for success in your chosen field from a very young age. Below, you’ll find my unsolicited, but in my humility-laden opinion, spectacular and priceless, advice to the classes of whatever year you did/will graduate, be they from elementary, junior high, high school, college, grad school, or some other institution. Read & heed, my friends!
DO WHAT YOU WANT. That’s all. Simple. If you have an inkling of what you want to do your whole life at whatever age you are, GO FOR IT. Don’t allow doubts, fears, or pesky little things like crippling anxiety overshadow your passion and desire for a specific route for your life. Live for yourself. It’s always nice to be selfless, but sometimes, you need to be selfish. I found out the hard way. I drastically changed my career path at the ripe young age of 30. I dropped out of medical school, I launched my own fashion line, and I continued to look for odd jobs to support my business. IT SUCKED. I wish I had gone to FIT or Parson’s right out of high school. I wish I had interned for Valentino or Marchesa or Rodarte. I wish I had apprenticed in Bombay with a designer I know. I wish I had done a lot of things, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. So, at the age of 33 with a graduate level education, a creatively obsessive background, and a small business, I worked (until a week ago) at a daycare center. I wiped other people’s children’s poop and noses (not with the same wipe, don’t worry), I cut up hot dogs for toddler lunches, I woke up at the crack of dawn (NOT ideal for an insomniac/nocturnal creature), I stood for 8 hours a day, and I dealt with the worst boss known to mankind. Lucky for me, I adore children and teaching both, so I made the best of what it was. A measly job with minor pay, but it allowed me to go to LA and go to Bombay and teach dance classes 3 days a week. It allowed me time to design & sketch at home, it allowed me time to spend QT with my nephew, and it allowed me time to go back to seriously building my business.
Unfortunately, I was forced to quit last week because that aforementioned “Horrible Boss” (without an ounce of the attractiveness of Jennifer Aniston), did not allow me a day off to attend a family funeral. Bitches be trippin’, yo, and karma isn’t always kind. Anyhow, so now here I am, back on the job hunt while working 20 hours a day on this and what do I find? I’m too overqualified for jobs like a cashier at Target or a counter person at a bakery, but too underqualified for the jobs relevant to my field. Do I have 2-4 years of retail experience if I want to apply as a Fashion Assistant at DKNY? No. I was at a science research program at Marymount. Do I have 1-2 years of previous mailroom experience in order to apply for a MAIL SORTER position at Armani? Nah. I was in medical school in Antigua.
I’m noticing that there are more and more people out there experiencing this kind of rock and a hard place situation when it comes to gainful employment (especially after a career shift), no matter what area it’s in. There are articles upon articles out there about what “experience” really even means in the social media obsessed, Vine celebrity, hired-from-Twitter-feed-to-become-a-TV-writer world (hello, Harvard Business Review!?!), but nothing actually being done about the seemingly ubiquitous situation. So my point of this rant is, until there is some evolution with today’s times, take my advice: START YOUNG. Yes, everyone will tell you it’s never too late. I mean, for the sake of full disclosure of my hypocrisy, one of my favorite quotes is “It’s never too late to be what you might have been” by George Eliot. HOWEVER, if you want to be who you might have been with a little more ease and comfort and a slightly quicker success rate, be who you might have been…..NOW.
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Today’s Interlude:“Everybody’s Free To Wear Sunscreen” by Baz Luhrmann
An all time favorite..dare to do unimaginable things.
It is not the critic who counts; nor the one who points out how the strong person stumbled, or where the doer of a deed could have done better.
The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who does actually strive to do deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion, spends oneself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at worst, if he or she fails, at least fails while daring greatly.
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those timid spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.
MY.NY. I’ve called it that for the past 8 years, lived in it for the past 32. It’s home, it’s always been home, I’m pretty sure it’ll always be home. I’ve been in love with the whole state, but mostly my city, my whole life & when people speak of their excitement or their “dream” to visit NYC one day, I get it. I feel lucky that I’ve lived in the center of the chaos; I feel lucky that now I’m only tens of minutes away on the outskirts of the hubbub. However, recently, things have had a subtle shift. The geographical love of my life has begun to fray at the edges, blurring my vision from behind my rose-colored glasses, adding an anxious thrum to the usually enthralled pulse that runs through me at just the sight of the concrete jungle.
New York, NYC, MY.NY., The Big Apple, The City That Never Sleeps is..amazing. It’s awesome. It’s incredible. It’s a world of its own with the population of the city being so diverse, you might as well have a passport for the island. You can be proffered a taste of a little bit of everything, a little bit of something, but sometimes that can transform into a little bit of nothing. New York has an inherent electricity far different from the literal Times Square sense. Even the subways have an energy, even the sidewalks have a story. New York, the emotional oxymoron; a place with over 8 million people that struggle to find just one or two true connections. The palpable nature of the city can either be arousing or overwhelming, sometimes both. Opportunities call kindly to you from every neon sign, from every sky-scraping window, from every glittering marquis; but they also dangle temptingly in front of you like a carrot, making you walk blindly & aimlessly that one extra step after another in the hopes that you’ll be allowed to take a bite someday. Someday. Nightfall in NYC can be a startlingly different experience from one 12 hour gap to the next. One night you’re out at a restaurant, a jazz bar, a club, & life is good and jubilant and you’re a firecracker about the town without a burden to shoulder. The next, you’re home in your shoebox studio that’s costing you your pension eating Ramen noodles & watching Sex & The City’s glossy glammed up version of a very different reality, & wondering why you feel alone in a city full of promised promise.
Don’t get me wrong, I am still thoroughly obsessed with my town. I love the “melting pot,” the variety, the camaraderie (it does happen sometimes!). I live for feeling alive when I walk through Central Park in the summer or 5th Avenue in the winter, Union Square in the fall, The Met in the spring. The sparkling lights still set something ablaze in the pit of my stomach (that is not attributed to the spices from an NY slice), my colorful memories leap out at me from every psychic-resided corner. I roam my undergraduate hallways of Washington & Waverly, gazing at the billowing purple NYU flags that are now ubiquitous at every turn from FiDi to SoHo to The Village to Midtown, reminiscing about that first day that my address read “New York, NY 10003” & how I was ready to embrace the place like a long lost love that I never knew I had. The creativity, the individuality, the temperament that is solely New York still tugs at my heartstrings like a child determinedly pulling a mother into a candy store. But now & again, I wonder if “MY.NY.” will forever be in the throes of a lifelong identity crisis.
“I carry the place around the world in my heart but sometimes I try to shake it off in my dreams.”-F.Scott Fitzgerald
Today’s Interlude(s): “New York, New York” by Frank Sinatra & “Empire State Of Mind” by Jay-Z & Alicia Keys
champagne & cookiedough 