UNITED STATES—I have to admit both 2021 and 2022 has been a blur to me a bit with the pandemic changing so many Americans lives in ways that you can never imagine. Death was potent in my family, illness, cancer and challenging times with family have reminded me that life is too short to say what you want in life versus actually going AFTER it. I used to believe in New Year’s Resolutions, but I have stopped as I’ve aged. Why? Resolutions tend to be temporary. I do not want temporary in my life, I want permanent because it is going to show some actual committment to change and not dropping the ball when I have a minor hiccup.
As a result, the biggest thing at the top of my list is a career change. I recently had a conversation with a family member who reminded me of my talent as a writer. Honestly, I have completely placed my writing career on the backburner for years and I hadn’t realized it until I was forced to see it right in front of me. Sometimes in life you know what you are put on this Earth to do. For some people it takes years to figure it out, for others you know it, you just really have to fight for it to come to fruition.
I think I’ve known since the age of 4 or 5 that cinema was an important element in my life, by the time that I hit middle school, I knew writing was my gift and then by the time high school ushered in I knew filmmaking was my passion. It’s the only thing in life that truly brightens my day beyond my family. In college, I wrote not one, but two screenplays, but there is where it has stopped. Life knocked me in the face and adulating became a true focus and my screenwriting aspirations and filmmaking focus solely dissipated into thin air, not because I wanted them to, but because it’s hard making a living as liberal arts major and filmmaking just doesn’t happen overnight.
However, it always comes back to me answering that question: are you truly happy with where you are in life career wise? And I can never say that I am because I’m not doing what matters most to me. I’ve procrastinated and procrastinated, but not anymore. That all changes for 2022, as my focus is going to be heavy on my screenwriting. I literally have like 4 to 5 ideas that have been circulating in my head for months (probably years if I’m being honest) and its time to put those thoughts on paper and PUSH MYSELF to make something happen.
I’m a firm believer things don’t just come to you in life because you want them to or you think about it. You have to actively make things happen. I have not done that, but that is about to change for me in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever considered. Am I scared to the core of taking a gamble and not knowing what the result will be? Hell yeah, but in life you sometimes have to take gambles, you have to take risks and do things that force you out of your comfort zone. I’ve always told people in life that I saw my career as teacher, filmmaker or lawyer. Filmmaker ranks at the top of the list, lawyer and teacher were always neck and neck people.
Teaching is important to me because I want to share my knowledge and I have the credentials to make it happen, but I’ve always wanted to teach at the collegiate level where I’m able to navigate the material, as a scholar in the film arena. Law just felt like something that might corrupt me with the notion of having power, it seemed to be more rooted in my drive to want to be a district attorney to clean up crime, but I’ve always worried about working against a system that didn’t see things my way in terms of doing what is right no matter the cost.
The scary thing about considering a career change is you have to put yourself first and I’m always someone worried about the perception and how people will react to the news that I’m about to reveal that is going to impact not just my life, but there’s as well. However, I’ve come to realize at times you have to put yourself as the center focus. People might not always understand your decision, but guess what it’s not for them to understand, it is for you to know what makes you truly happy and to go for it with an iron first. I have a saying in life, “We’re not afraid of failure, we’re afraid of success.”
Some of you might be asking exactly what that means. It means we’re use to failing in life and it happens often for many of us, but when it comes to success that is something that is foreign to many of us. We don’t always know what that feels like and the notion of us actually achieving something that we set our minds to can be absolutely scary, but at the same time it can be so fulfilling words cannot explain what has been accomplished. If there is something you have been placing on the backburner, it’s time to stop, 2022 is a New Year. Go after the things you want and don’t apologize for doing it.
