Do I Pivot?

I am wrung out, are you?

I don’t know if it’s just me or if everyone in their twenties feels this strange grief, but lately I’ve realized I’m not lost in the traditional sense. I know exactly what I want. That’s actually the problem.

I want a creative life. I want to write and create and speak and make things that actually mean something to people. I want a career in media and entertainment and storytelling. I want to feel proud of what I do when someone asks me about my job instead of immediately changing the subject.

What nobody tells you, though, is how psychologically exhausting it is to want something that has absolutely no roadmap.

Right now I work a job that asks nothing creative of me besides showing up and surviving the day. It pays my bills, which I’m grateful for, but every day I leave feeling like a part of my brain is rotting. The worst part isn’t even the work itself, honestly. It’s feeling surrounded by people who seem completely fine with settling into a life they don’t even like that much.

And maybe that sounds judgmental, but I don’t mean it in a cruel way. I think some people genuinely are okay with stability being enough for them. Sometimes I wish I was one of those people. Life would probably feel significantly less terrifying.

Instead, I feel like I’m constantly stuck between ambition and embarrassment.

Because the truth is, creative ambition is embarrassing. Especially when you’re not successful yet.

At least with traditional careers, the next step always exists. Not easy, obviously, but you know what comes next. You take the exam. Apply to the program. Finish residency. Pass the bar. There’s a certain structure to it. A path carved out by thousands of people before you.

Creative careers feel like standing in the middle of a foggy road hoping eventually you run into the right person before you run out of money or belief in yourself.

Nobody can really tell you how to “make it” because everybody’s story is different. One person got discovered on Social media. Another had industry parents. Another got lucky networking at a random internship. Another spent ten years making things nobody cared about until suddenly everybody did.

So half the time, pursuing creativity feels less like career building and more like developing a very specific type of delusion.

And social media honestly makes it worse. You open your phone for five minutes and suddenly someone your age is starring in a movie, hosting a show, getting a book deal, walking a red carpet, or building the exact life you’ve been quietly dreaming about since you were twelve years old.

Meanwhile you’re seating people at a shitty restaurant wondering if you’re losing your mind. ( I am sorry but some people are genuinely more annoying than they realize)

I think the hardest part is how vague all the advice becomes once you enter creative spaces too.

“Put yourself out there.”

Okay, where?

“Network.”

With who?

“Just create.”

I am trying.

At some point the advice becomes so abstract that you genuinely start wondering if the entertainment industry is just built entirely on luck and nepotism.

Like seriously, what is the next step supposed to be? Do I cold email Lorne Michaels? Do I become one of those people making TikToks in their car hoping the algorithm changes my life? Am I supposed to magically know somebody’s cousin’s uncle’s sister who works at NBC? (The Nina Katz of it all)

I don’t know.

And I think that uncertainty is what makes creative dreams so painful sometimes. And it is not because the work itself is hard, but because there’s no guarantee that any amount of effort will lead anywhere. There’s no acceptance letter waiting at the end of talent. No linear proof that you’re doing the right thing.

Just you, your ideas, your taste, and the terrifying responsibility of continuing anyway.

But I also think if wanting a creative life keeps you awake at night, it probably means it matters. I don’t think people who are meant for ordinary lives grieve the loss of artistic ones this deeply.

So maybe the answer isn’t having everything figured out right now.

Maybe it’s just not quitting regardless of how you feel today.

Fuck your feelings and keep going