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I recently read a series of studies about what makes people happy. Each article was about a different subject, approached from a different angle. Whether it was a scietific, philosophical, religious or socio-economic view regarding money, marriage, health or sex, one thing finally seemed very clear: nothing makes you happy.
That's it. Pretty simple, huh? Either you're happy, or you're not. Single people wish they had somebody special, and married people wish they could get out of the hell they've built for themselves... unless they're happy. Poor people would kill for a pile of money (some do), and rich people feel burdened by their money, constantly worrying about who's trying to get something from them... unless they're happy.
The study didn't cover the Hollywood dream, so I'll cover it here:
If you're trying to find happiness in your Hollywood dream, you won't.
I know you were expecting a major revelation, but you shouldn't do that while reading my column. This is the forum of the obvious.
A person who is miserable tends to remain miserable. The greatest things could happen to you and you would still return to your natural state of misery. A person who is happy tends to remain happy. Bad things happen, but they are temporary lulls, and your positive outlook on life will return you to a state of euphoria.
Now, it's story time.
Once upon a time, I had a job that I hated more than you could possibly imagine. I finally left, and signed up with a temp agency to keep me in rent money until I could figure out my next step. While going through their testing process to prove that I could type, handle simple math and pass a fourth grade grammar test, a young Hollywood hopeful entered the office. He was self-important and aloof, and I wanted to kick him really, really hard. When asked what kind of job he was looking for, he said "Oh, I just want something in entertainment, and then I'll figure out where I want to go from there."
WHAT?!!
What a jackass. This is like saying "Send over the Playmate of the Year, and while I'm using her for my pleasure I'll decide how I want my social calender to look for the year." Or "Get me a Rolls Royce to drive while I figure out what kind of car I should ask Daddy for." Sure - life is just that good.
You can't just summon up a the life of your dreams as if it comes from rubbing a lamp. There's a pathway to get to wherever you're going, and sometimes it's just not that obvious. I don't know where that idiot ended up, but I'll bet he didn't end up with a fabulous career in entertainment. I ended up at a major studio, and boy was I ever happy.
Actually, I was miserable.
I got a temp assignment as an assistant to a development exec at a major studio, and I thought this was a ramp lined with a red carpet. I was in. I'm here. This is great. I can just hand her all my scripts and she can just hand me a series of blank checks. Oh, wait - it doesn't work that way. I'm just a pile of recycled dog biscuits answering the phone until the person who has some actual worth shows up to take over this job for real. That person was a fresh-faced young lady who had just graduated from some fancy shmancy college with a degree in "I wanna be just like you, important boss person". I was kept on an extra day to train her, and this person - who had never struggled for anything IN HER LIFE - basically dismissed me.
Well, as irony would have it, I got a permanent job within the same division, and I had the priveledge of seeing this person about six months later. I barely recognized her. After six months of nothing but stress working under the thumb of Miss Misery, this girl was a wreck. She must've gained 30 pounds, her face was so broken out I thought she was dying, and all the light was gone from her eyes. Her sorority sister disposition was now replaced by a look I've only seen in abused puppies. She was 23 and looked like she was pushing 40.
I've battled with depression on and off for many years, and the one thing I've noticed is that the worse I feel, the less I get done. I've known people who left Hollywood and are now happier than they ever thought they'd be. And, I know people who are married with children and making $100k a year and are jealous of me. You don't need to immerse yourself in Hollywood. For every success story where the assistant becomes the boss, there's a thousand assistants who wallow in misery and resentment and are never going to get anywhere. There's also plenty of success stories where the video store clerk living with his mother at age 30 becomes a big shot filmmaker.
It's all about how you spend your day. You can work a job within the industry and get treated like crap and worked day and night and be so depressed that you don't have the energy to stick your tongue in a light socket, or you can get a job scooping cat boxes and thrive on the joy of having a pile of kittens climb all over you, laugh your ass off and put that positive energy into the rest of the things you do in life.
Start happy, be happy. Start miserable, stay miserable. It's all about where the day takes you. |
