Five years from now, I will be a succesful writer – doing what I love every day and getting paid for it.
I wanted to start my writing today with a prompt to get me going. The first one I saw was “Five years from now, I will be…” I think it’s important to give yourself goals and review them every now and then to see how you progress. Every year I write down 10-20 New Year’s Resolutions. They can be as simple as “Lower my golf handicap to 14” or as complicated as “Find a second source of income to dedicate entirely to savings.“
The most consistent goal I’ve had since I started keeping goals has been to someday become a full-time writer. That’s in part why I’m currently doing this, operating this blog and posting as often as possible. I’m still in training. This site is my gym. It’s where I come to train. To be honest, I don’t really expect anyone to be reading this. I’m mainly writing for my own personal satisfaction and to figure out what sort of things I lean toward and enjoy. If other people enjoy it and can take something from it, great!
I fell into my current job/career in digital marketing. Sure, I majored in marketing in college but I thought that meant I’d be sitting in a board room with cool creatives brainstorming funny ideas for the next Doritos, Bud Light, or Geico commercial. What I’m doing now is nowhere near that. While I’ve had the opportunity to work at some great places with some even better people, it’s not what I had in mind when I entered the corporate world as a starry-eyed 21-year old. Granted, if I could go back and major in English or Journalism, I don’t think I’d have landed my dream job in writing either. I think it’s extremely rare for anyone to land their dream job that easily. Most of the time it only “arrives” after years of being underpaid, working tough jobs with shit hours, and grueling through the tough stuff to gain the experience necessary.
At this point, I’m willing to put in those years. Although I make good money now and can enjoy the freedom and flexibility of working from home and unlimited vacation, I want to have the joy of waking up every morning excited to tackle my next project. I’ve come to the point in my life where I realize the long term benefits of chasing my dream far outway the short-term losses in income or lifestyle.
Yes, I’m getting married and want to buy a house soon. I’m afraid I’ll fall into the trap of obsessing over the cost of things and therefore will be to scared to leave behind my good bi-weekly paychecks in favor of much much smaller salaries for a job which will ultimately lead me to where I want to be.
What does this “dream job” of writing entail for me? I’m not quite sure to be honest. It may be becoming a columnist at The New York Times or some other notable publication, it may be as a journalist for a cable television network, it may be starting my own website or podcast recommending books. I don’t know. What I do know is that my natural hobbies have always ended up somewhere close to this. In college I started writing funny things I observed every day on Twitter, because I enjoyed it. That got me some recognition on campus and eventually led to a job at the school newspaper writing a weekly humor column. Throughout that process, I also started a blog called Rhymes with Ranga (which I’ve since deleted in fear of getting cancelled). I used the blog as a fun way to get my thoughts out of my head in long-form and to explore creative ideas. Most of them were shit and probably don’t hold up, but for me it was an outlet – as is this. The most consistent thing is that I’ve always needed some broad-form place to spill ideas out of my head. The ideas keep coming, and I’m just trying to figure out how to organize them into one cohesive format that may be grant me personal freedom and success.
All throughout this endeavor, my favorite part by far has been the interactions. I’m discovering what I want to do while you guys reading and following are discovering new books, products, and ideas. I can’t tell you the joy of getting a text or a DM from someone telling me how much they enjoyed one of my recommendations. It’s honestly why I do this. Those little interactions are what make my day. Five years from now I hope I look back on this as a great tool on my rise to success in the field of writing and recommending. But for now, we’ll see.
Thanks for reading
-KB