You Can Never Water That Career Plant Too Much! (I said)

There's no way around it. We live in a NOW generation. 

We think that we are entitled to living a life of a certain standard and get angry when the plans we have for our careers don't seem to be happening fast enough, if at all.

I'm a culprit of this mentality just as much as the next person.

I've always been one to jump off of the deep end into anything that I do.

I learned to sew by starting on a full medieval dress.

I learned to play piano by working out the fingering for Disney's Sleeping Beauty "Once Upon a Dream" song and then quickly moved into writing stuff of my own.

I started in the film industry by moving out to LA at the age of nineteen....

Not only that, I started by expecting that the month after my internship I would find a great job as an intern or maybe an art PA on films, television shows, music videos... or maybe I might start on commercials for a short while before those doors opened up.

I have carefully planted the seed of my career and have been watering it faithfully a dozen times a day.

Every time I come back to check on my plant I shake my head with a "tsk, tsk" and dump another can of water over it's poor little, limp head.

But I'm realizing that life doesn't work this way.

I'm only nineteen, folks. Big surprise, I don't have my life all together yet! I'm pretty sure I know the general direction that I'm headed with my career, but the path of getting there takes a whole lot of time, effort, and patience (something of which I am lacking).

I was talking with a new, but great friend and mentor that I have made out here who is also letting me intern part time with her in her art studio and she was giving me advice about making it in the industry (as both she and her husband have done a lot of incredible things in the entertainment and art industries). What she told me was: 

1 - I need more training. I'm competing with people out here who have four or six year degrees. 

People might not look much at your diploma in the film industry, but they sure do look at how much experience you have and what work you've done. 

2 - I'm still really young. Most people aren't going to hire a nineteen year old (even if I am almost twenty).... Big shocker. Really, it kind of was. Although it shouldn't have been. I have this mentality that "well, I'm not like other nineteen year olds who just want to party and won't take their career seriously, so of course they want to hire me!" Problem is, no one else knows this. They just see another nineteen year old youngster (or, shoot, even twenty year old youngster) standing next to the older, more mature, more responsible, more experienced options.

3 - I kind of have this thirst for adventure. Since 1 - I need more experience and 2 - I'm still young, why don't I go have some adventures?? My friend told me all about the months that she spent traveling Europe and staying in hostels. She said that I should do something like that, even if just around the U.S. for lack of money....

Boy, do I love the sound of that!

So what should I do?

Part of me still is like "No! This is my one chance at making a life for myself in the industry!" (turn on the faucet and stick the watering can beneath), "I need to get going with my life! I can't stop now to study more" (carry the watering can out to the flower bed) "or just have an adventure–even if it could spark more creative juices for my writing" (dump the water and watch the plant tremble beneath the overbearing weight).

Like that plant, I am still young and frail. I have always thought of myself as so strong, able to handle hard circumstances. But I'm not. I'm only as strong as the circumstances that I've been through have made me, and to be honest, compared to a lot of people I have lived a very sheltered life.

Yes, God has given me all of the tools that I have needed to keep strong and grounded in Him up to this point. But I feel that the difficulties and trials are about to get exponentially bigger. Maybe it's now that God wants to provide me with the next set of tools that I need to build a firmer foundation in Him.

Lord only knows.

Assr vísa ykkarr brand.

(May God guide your sword.)

Elizabeth Marie Kauffman