Namaste 

You can’t have everything you want at once. I found this out the hard way when I tried to eat a cheesy gordita crunch™ in a convertible with the top down. Life is full of lessons, like sacrifice. You either have to put the top up, or the taco down, but you can’t have both. Because if you try, you will end up turning onto the freeway, resulting in 80 mile per hour speeds, refried beans flying god knows where, and half of your hair in your mouth.

Sacrifice is the worst because you usually don’t get any sort of gratification after. Like when I decide to drink vodka sodas instead of piña coladas on my vacation and expect to wake up a smaller dress size after 3 days.

My good friend reminded me about this important virtue when I expressed that I want nothing more than to move to New York and write comedy for a living. She reminded me that although that goal is swell, and not too far-fetched, that I might actually have to do some writing.

Prove myself?! Fuck that! Can’t I get anything just by being cute and blonde anymore? I guess it worked better when I was 16 and still had my cheerleading body. Now I have a potato body, and people want to hire me for my talents, for which I have none.

So here’s the adulthood dilemma. Work hard for a long time with no light at the end of the tunnel, in hopes that when you finally get to where you have tried so hard to go, that when you get there, you don’t frigging hate it! My biggest fear is working my ass off to accomplish something and realizing what I’ve accomplished is a shit job, and I hate it. This concept of “wasted time” if you will.

But here’s the thing. We’ve probably already done this like 5 times already. Think about how you almost died getting through your college finals, only to end up working as a customer service representative at Enterprise Rental Car for the first 6 months after college. But then remember how you met your now best friend and roommate at that shit hole, and he introduced you to graphic design, and now your back in school on nights and weekends trying to get a different job, that’s more suited to your interests, and hopefully doesn’t suck as much as wearing a headset and sitting in a carpet covered cube all day.

It’s just a continual process to the eventual happiness I’ve heard everyone gets in their 30’s. (20 somethings, put down the razorblades, I’ve heard your 30’s are super cool.) Are razorblades even a cool way to kill yourself anymore, or is that so 2004? What’s hip these days, prescription drugs? Anyway the thing is, it’s not productive to think about the struggle, it’s all about the journeeeeeey man.

Some of my fondest memories come from times that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, and was working way too hard doing shit I hated. I met all of my best friends while I was in college, and even though I went to school from 8-12 and worked from 12-8, I would hang out with them as much as possible, and find creative ways to fit my homework in. There are so many amazing people in my life I met working stepping-stone jobs. In fact, I’m still friends with someone I met at a job that I only worked at for 3 months.

And as much as I love being told what to do (Gentlemen call me, wink wink), and it would seem like such a relief to know the right path to take, sometimes you have to step forward onto a journey that you hypothesize will lead to a good thing. And while you are on that grind, try to make it as fun and as positive of an experience as you can. Reach out to people that seem dope, make friends, make plans when you can, pursue your interests on your free time, and don’t forget to drink wine. It really really helps.

Namaste.