Why I Won’t Choose Just One Career

I’ve spent the last six months having a bit of a quarter-life crisis, and I’ve suddenly realized that it’s completely unnecessary.

Creative writing and acting have been passions of mine since I was little – any form of storytelling, really.

But I’ve always thought, in the back of my mind, that some day I would have to pick one or the other.

And in the past six months, as my husband gets closer to finishing his PhD and we get closer to moving we-don’t-know-where, I’ve felt like that point was approaching.

On top of that I started my own copywriting business this year. It began as an insurance policy: I don’t want to be unemployed when we move, so the sensible thing seemed to be to create a business I could take with me anywhere.

And then.. then, I discovered I liked my business. I was good at it. I enjoyed it. I was proud of my work, and I loved doing it.

And on top of that, I was scared to admit that I did all those things. I was worried that no one would take my fiction writing seriously if they also knew I was a business writer. Or that my copywriting clients would be put off if they found out I was also an actress.

Enter the quarter-life crisis. I couldn’t choose one thing to do for the rest of my life, and I felt like each part of my professional life had to be kept secret from the others.

I was going crazy trying to decide what to do. I literally had trouble sleeping at night because I couldn’t shut my brain off from worrying about things. I started having recurring migraines.

And I was doing it completely to myself.

Because I’ve come to realize, I don’t need to choose. I decided I was supposed to pick just one thing to do… but no one is making me. And there’s no reason to be embarrassed about loving different things, or pursuing an unconventional, multi-part career. I was already doing that, and I loved it, so why change?

Sure, maybe one day down the road I’ll decide I need to take a break from acting. Or scale back on the time I devote to one kind of writing or another. But that’s the beauty of creating a career on my own terms: it’s flexible. I can do the things I want, the things that bring me excitement and stress and frustration and joy.

So here’s to doing the things you love, of making a career that fits your life, that is creative and fulfilling and flexible. Here’s to work on your own terms, regardless of what anyone else thinks.

Here’s to embracing both my artistic side and my business side, and not being scared to own them both.

Here’s to no more sleepless nights, no more migraines, no more quarter-life crisis.

(At least for now. I’m probably neurotic enough to do this to myself again someday.)