Dear Cary,
I've written to so many advice columnists and no one ever answers. I am plagued by problems -- for years. In general, what the hell is the deal with me? I was so blithe and great and happy in childhood -- but ever since I was, oh, 15, things have gone downhill, and I'm just about 29 now.
After high school, I moved away to go to college, but I quit after two years because I wasn't really happy. I wanted to be a singer, as I had since I was 5, and I was doing some singing. But in general I felt unhappy, there was something lacking, and also I was in a relationship I wanted to get away from. So I quit school and moved away. In my new location, I sang a bit, got into another relationship, really wanted to get out of it, and moved away again. In my new location, I sang more, met another man, moved away with him, definitely had to leave, and -- yes, moved away again. That was when I moved back in with my parents. I waitressed, moved to a new place, waitressed and sang there, then decided to finish school and did, but hated it the whole time. The school was lacking academically and was in a podunk town-- where I met a new man, moved in with him, and then, about a year later, yes, moved away. Now I am living with my parents again and feeling quite at a loss.
I always dreamed of great things in life. But I'm going to be 30 and I've done nothing -- nothing to be able to say, "Hey, I've made it!" In short, I've made nothing for myself (except learning the hard way whom not to fall in love with). I'm waitressing again, and yes, singing (in a tiny show where I make $75 a week and wear a rubber cone head -- don't ask). I think I'll stop moving -- I've wanted to for years. (Though I will move out of my parents' house.) But just what the hell should I do? I've moved around since childhood -- four years is the longest I've ever lived anywhere, and one year is the longest I've ever held a job. There are so many things I am interested in -- writing, editing, singing, dancing -- but career-wise, my résumé is just a long list of waitressing and oddities.
Where I am now is the closest thing I have to a childhood home, and I have family here (my parents only live here half the year), and so I feel I might stick here. So sometimes I think I am finally ready to do "my life" and make something out of it, besides a mess. But other times I am very scared to think of the future -- I don't want to be forever drifting. I want a fulfilling career, a husband and family. But how to start? What am I to do? I am so bored waitressing and I have about three friends spread over the U.S. due to me being neither here nor there but always taken up with a tumultuous relationship with a man.
Tell me -- where shall I start and while I'm waiting for roots to grow, how can I not be so bored?
Chronically Waiting, Dreaming and Scheming for a Life That Is Passing Me By
P.S. I have thought about performing musicals on a cruise ship but I need to build something for the future, not just another temporary excitement!
Dear Chronically Waiting,
So you've written to lots of advice columnists and nobody ever writes back? Well, I'll write back. I'll write back because there are certain things you need to know that no one tells you, things I have learned the hard way, things that are simple but can take a lifetime. You don't have a lifetime.
So here is the deal in a nutshell: Your actions have put you in the spot you're in. I'm not blaming you. I'm just directing your attention to the correct area. It's time to change your actions. How do you do that? You adopt a different set of criteria for making decisions.
You left college after two years because you weren't happy. "Happy" was a criterion for leaving college. That will have to change. "Happy" is not a criterion anymore. "Required for the next step" is a your new criterion.
For the next five years I suggest you do only those things that are required to take you to the next step. It will be hard to change but it is doable and simple and it will give you a much better shot at being happy.
Where do you start? You start by clarifying the goal toward which you are going to struggle for the next five years. I suggest creating a goal that is obtainable through hard work and that is measurable. I would say your goal right now should be to attain proficiency and excellence in your craft.
You may want to be a star. You may think that should be your goal. But I don't think so. I think your goal should be to attain proficiency and excellence in your craft. The desire to be a star may be a vision that motivates you. You may benefit from visualizing yourself as a star. But for a goal you need something that is under your control. Proficiency and excellence in your craft is something you can actually attain. It may sometimes precede stardom, but it is never a guarantee of stardom. There is no guarantee of stardom. But there are guaranteed milestones of proficiency and excellence that are obtainable.
So let's say that your No. 1 goal in life is now to attain proficiency and excellence in your craft of singing and acting. That's very simple. How is that done? It's done through education and hard work.
If you adopt this one goal, your decisions can all flow from this one premise: Your purpose is to attain proficiency and excellence in your craft. What do you do? Whatever you have to do in order to attain proficiency and excellence in your craft, that's what you do.
How? You take voice lessons and acting lessons. You build your network of fellow singers and actors. You locate yourself in the best place possible for getting that kind of education, experience and contacts.
What place is that?
Well, there's no doubt that Los Angeles and New York are the best places to go if you already have the skills. But where are the best places to learn these skills? Not necessarily Los Angeles and New York.
Here are the U.S. News and World Report rankings of top national universities for voice and opera majors. And here are the magazine's rankings of schools for acting majors.
Here are the magazine's rankings for liberal arts colleges in the same categories, of voice and opera, and in the category of acting.
I'm not saying categorically that you should go back to school for a B.A. in performance. But I'm saying you want to gain the hard facts and take concrete actions. Maybe you look and find the best teacher and that teacher is in one of these towns with a top-rated drama and voice program. The talent tends to cluster. So you might move to a town with one of the top-rated schools. It's this kind of thinking that I'm suggesting.
You may find it impossible to sit long enough and concentrate long enough to make the right plans. There may be more work involved in doing this. Some of this work may involve understanding what happened when you were 15. You were happy and then something happened. Sometimes things happen in adolescence and we form patterns of behavior as a result and we don't find out until years later how that happened. We underestimate the power of these events somehow; we believe that we are able to make the right decisions but those decisions keep putting us in a bad spot. So in order to make this orderly shift, you may have to enlist the help of others. That would make sense.
Want to know a secret? I can hardly do anything on my own. Actually, I now have three professionals helping me cope with life. Three! One of these people is paid for by the city, as one of its programs to help small businesses. One is paid by my health insurance through my employer. And one of them I pay out of my pocket. OK, I'm kind of a basket case, but I'm just saying, there's nothing wrong with going out into the world and asking for help. It's all worth it.
Want to know another secret? I want to be a singer, too. I used to be in a punk/new wave band. You want to hear me sing a punk song? I'm pretty bad! Tell you what. If you will promise me that you will go and start working seriously on your craft, I will send you -- no, better yet, I will place on the Web for all to hear -- a song that I wrote and sang in the early 1980s and, well, OK, that's just the deal I'm offering. Because you need some kind of "accountability buddy." You need somebody to be accountable to who won't let you slide.
So you write to me and let me know what you're doing, and then I will do this. I will place myself on the line, so that we have some accountability, you and me. So we have a deal.
I'm almost at my deadline now so I have to wrap up. But I want to say that the beauty of changing your life in this way, wrapping it around a purpose, is that your life begins to have a demonstrable shape. Someone asks, well, what brings you to Evanston, Ill.? And you say, well, I'm trying to become the best singer I can possibly be, and they have the best teachers here.
Having a goal makes your life a story. What is a story? It's somebody who wants something and tries to get it. It's what the person wanted and how he or she went about trying to get it. So you make your life a story. Then everything falls into place.
It's not as easy as it looks. It's not easy to change your life. It's not easy to do things differently. But it can be done.
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