When I was a little girl, I wanted to be an actress. Then a TV star. Then a lawyer. Then a teacher. Then a weathergirl.
Then I grew up and wanted to be someone who didn’t miss a payment on her Citibank card.
Unfortunately, a new Marist Poll indicates that “acting” is still a dream job for adult Americans.
Adults. People who have kids, bills, and responsibilities.
This table makes my heart ache as a Human Resources professional and career advisor.
I don’t need a poll to tell me that Americans are poorly conditioned for adult life, they seek a career that allows them to escape from reality (because reality sucks, right now), and that people equate success with stardom and celebrity.
Does the average American realize that you can be both famous and poor? You can be a working actress and someone who can’t pay her bills?
I just wish people would dream bigger.
I recently gave this advice to a reader who was sad about ‘giving up on his dream’.
You can participate in community theater and hold down a job at your local bank. Take an improv class. Volunteer at a children’s theater.
There are plenty working professionals who have a full-time job and love theater, art, and music. There’s no need to dream about being an actor. Go do it.
And pay your bills at the same time.
43 comments ...wanna add one?
I really like your advice about dream jobs. Let’s face it, who knows if those jobs are so great, anyway? Sometimes, it is better to do what you love in a way that helps you keep loving it – as a hobby.
Dream jobs become jobs.
Case in point: blogging.
*singing* cuz your leaving…
leaving…
leaving on thet midnight train to georgia…
wooo hooo
Ha! Thank you, Smoove B.
Some of it is poor guidance through school and the fact that jobs have changed. Just 10 years ago (not 30 or 40 years ago) when I taught high school English, the majority of the girls would tell me they wanted to be nurses, teachers, and secretaries–I think mostly because those were the only jobs they knew in their small town. It’s a failure of high school guidance counselors not to seek out actual careers like instructional design, occupational therapy, pharmacy, or civil engineering. As adults, it’s a failure of our own imaginations, if we can’t find way to be rockstars at our own paying gigs and sell them to the next generations of kids, especially bright young girls or bright young kids who are first-generation college bound.
I love this line.
As adults, it’s a failure of our own imaginations, if we can’t find way to be rockstars at our own paying gigs and sell them to the next generations of kids, especially bright young girls or bright young kids who are first-generation college bound.
So true!
That’s why I get all the enjoyment I can out of singing in bands as a hobby (and for a little extra money), but I have no illusions/delusions that it’ll ever be more than that. Especially at my age!
Now I just need to figure out how to become a hobby veterinarian and paleontologist to address my childhood dream jobs.
First you need to go to hobby vet school, which just doesn’t sound as fun as snorgling with kittehs all day long. (My current dream job.)
Actually, volunteering in the cat recovery room at the low-cost spay and neuter clinic is close enough to being a vet.
Dude, not enough can be said about the value of paying your bills. Folks that fail to manage their finances are the unhappiest lot, it’s stressful, and horrible.
I’ve been lucky I’ve been able to do what I love, but it’s been following the model you state above. I’ve always worked grown up jobs, thankfully ones I enjoy, and have made time for comedy and film. The key is 1. I run the numbers, the math has to add up in my favor, and 2. I don’t believe the hype. The most successful careers in this country must be based on exploiting peoples dreams and their fears, because if you want to be famous, there are 1,000 leeches willing to take advantage of your naivete, and wring you dry and toss you out.
I guess, to put it simply, in managing your life and career, remember money talks and bullshit walks.
“Money talks and bullshit walks.”
This is exactly why I’m going back to work with Mark Stelzner. I’m trying to translate the relationships I’ve built via PRHR into a real business. If I can’t do it, I’ll go work at Starbucks. But I need to work.
If anyone wants to know how hard it is to be a performer as a career, feel free to send them my way. Been there, don’t that, and now struggling with other career issues. But at least I knew when to give up on my crazy dreams!
You didn’t give up on your dreams. They evolved!
And you were the inspiration for my advice!
I wanted to be a dolphin trainer. Recently I watched the Cove. Now I hate my child-self.
It’s okay. I wanted to name my first baby Sussidio. Yes, like the Phil Collins song. Because in 1986, I was a kid and that seemed like a fun name for a baby girl.
Someone go back and punch that kid.
I’ll punch that kid. I spent half of the 80s with that nickname against my will. That one and Suzanne Suzannah Dannah.
Well that didn’t come out the way I thought it would. Instead of being funny it just sounds mean. Sorry.
I’m in the rock star category and I will kick your ass at guitar hero.
You will. But I’m pretty good at Wii bowling.
Worse than “actor,” what about those people who want to be president? Hah! The opportunities are SLIM.
Minus the weather girl, we had the exact same childhood aspirations…though I suspect those careers are not unpopular among most young girls. Why did you want to be a lawyer? Me – Matlock.
I feel a lot better about my current imaginary careers – veterinarian, cranberry farmer, director of an animal shelter, Sea World trainer (though the Cove is still sitting unopened on my entertainment center…so perhaps I might change my mind?), nursing home activities coordinator, own a winery…that might be all of them. Perhaps one day!
(Check this out – when my mom was little, she wanted to either be a ballerina or…are you ready? A NUN! What?)
I wanted to be a lawyer because of LA Law.
Sad.
Also, PS, cranberry farmer is too much work. Think blueberries.
PS 2 – A nun?!
It’s funny — I know a lot of working actors, stage managers, dancers, singers, etc. — but the majority of those I know have a full-time job in offices and schools everywhere. I don’t think what you do has to be an exclusive relationship, and the concept that we have to get paid to do what we love is kind of bullshit, — and I think the inverse of that is also bullshit. We do not have to love what we get paid to do.
That being said, the first thing I wanted to be when I grew up was a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, and once I moved on from that, I think I landed on super hero, psychiatrist, FBA Agent, and a million other things. I think accepting that things I enjoy aren’t career paths has made them much more enjoyable. If I thought for a second I would be a professional surfer or tennis player, I’d be a lot crankier when engaging in those activities. Right now, they’re just fun.
I want to be a professional surfer. I’m not tall. I can’t swim. I don’t have abs.
Good thing I’m a blogger.
I wanted to be a forensic pathologist, even early in high school that’s what I wanted to do. I could’ve paid the bills I have and then some with the lofty dreams I had. But dude, chemistry was not my thing. I let that dream die and found a new one. HR is not my dream, being happy is and paying the bills makes me happy because then I can buy Via Spiga shoes from Zappos.
Mmmmm. Shoes.
I wanted to be an actor, singer, rock star etc when I was younger. I tried acting in college at a community theater and I had perhaps the least electric stage presence ever. But I did love being part of the crew (lights, sound, stage managing).
I don’t think I’d ever want to be as famous as a “star” requires you to be. Being a “rock star” these days only makes you money via concerts – the record industry is seriously broken.
I also wanted to be a teacher when I was younger, which is hysterical to me now – the idea of being around kids all day gives me hives.
I did have my dream job, or at least a scenario where I was paid for what I love to do, for a while. It was great.
Your stage presence is way better than mine.
Your comment has me wondering — who really makes money anymore?
I may have interpreted the table of results incorrectly, but it looks like a forced choice poll – so I wouldn’t necessarily say that the percentage of Americans would pick “actor/actress” as a dream job is accurate. They weren’t allowed to name their own dream job (i.e. kitty snuggler), but had to pick from the options available; a little misleading, IMO.
I’m an HR Professional by day (bills to pay, shoes to buy, trips to take) and I do the things I absolutely love to do (music/singing, arts) for free. I have no complaints. Compared to most people on the planet right now, I’m one lucky SOB.
I’ll miss you at PRHR, but am glad you will still be blogging. I almost never comment, but always enjoy reading.
Damn you and your critical thinking! Ruining all my fun!
You *are* one lucky SOB and I’m glad you left a comment.
I’ll bet you a lunch that those survey respondents don’t want to be actors (incredibly hard work, IRL): they want to be “movie stars” (checkout-magazine fantasyland). The great Walker Percy explored this phenomenon almost 50 years ago in “The Moviegoer.”
On the related topic of living your dream, have you read Stan Slap’s “Bury My Heart at Conference Room B” yet? I’m no fan of business self-help books (to put it mildly), but this one’s truly worthwhile, I think.
So true. And imma order that book because you recommended it!
I wanted to be a spy and then an artist. Somewhere in between all that I wanted to be a monk. Yes I am a girl, but I didn’t want to be a nun. I liked the monasteries and the vows of silence and the little room I could live in and read all day and draw the Book of Kells. Well is that a true introvert or what? I ended up being an artist and then realized I needed a job to pay my bills. So it was sort of the “actor” thing but it does wear on you when you can’t pay your bills. HRPuf was right about that. I had part time jobs while I did my art and I made money at my art but not enough to REALLY live on. Now, I have a full time job and a part time job because I never want to not be able to pay my bills again.
Debt is killing us in this country.
I’m glad you are doin it right and paying your bills.
Don’t give up on your art! (I know you won’t.)
I have always wanted to be a professional writer. But since the average writer makes like 35k a year and no benefits…. I blog and write in my spare time (what little there is). The dream doesn’t go away, even though I no it isn’t realistic. Polls are funky and so easily manipulated by the way they are worded. Depending on how a career poll was worded I might say writer, though EVP of HR is my real goal…
Early on I wanted to be a welder, a mechanic or a race car driver. By junior high I changed that to veterinarian or model. By the time I hit college I wanted to be a mad scientist, which I did achieve.
WOW! I am in awe of that mad scientist thing.
I’ve accomplished everything I’ve ever wanted to be in life– just never made a shitload of money doing it— Yet.
How bout daydreaming about being a certain person? Mine were male: David Bowie. female: Isabella Rosallini. Two of the coolest people on the planet.
Laurie,
I’ve been wrestling with the dream/career issue most of my adult life. I’m a poet (stop rolling your eyes! Published widely, have a book out, respected by my peers), but I work as an IT recuiter for a staffing agency. I put in my hours at the office each day, but my nights and weekends are mine. I write on my own time, I’m on the board of a local literary arts non-profit, I host a monthly poetry reading with featured poets and an open mic, I attend readings, I give readings, and I collaborate with other artists and musicians. In other words, I’m still working the dream, but I’m keeping up on my car payments, too. For years I lamented the plight of a poet working in corporate America until I attended a workshop with Dana Gioia, a well-reknowned poet who will be considered for the US Poet Laureate post one day. Gioia achieved much of his early success as a poet while working as an executive for Kraft Foods. If he could achieve at the level of success he gained while putting in 60 hours a week, why couldn’t I make it work?
So, I set about doing that. My car starts in the morning. My cats have food in the bowl. I get to spoil my girlfriend from time to time. And my poems are seeing ink.
Of course, I still dream about running away to an MFA program and teaching creative writing at some small mountain or coastal college. Nothing wrong with that.
Cheers,
Shawn
@Shawn ~ Wallace Stevens is my favorite art/commerce dual personality and role model. By day: buttoned-up insurance company lawyer. But by night: one of the greatest US poets ever. Trippy and deep, *way* ahead of his time.
@ken — Yes! One of my favorites, too. Other fine examples of poets from the work world include T.S. Eliot (Lloyds of London) and William Carlos Williams (Private Practice Physician). In the case of WCW, it’s interesting to note that many of his poems can fit on the back of a prescription pad.
Never wanted to be a rockstar. Bass player, yep. I wanted to be Geddy Lee when I was 11.
I’m an artist, and that’s sort of my destiny. I can’t always pursue it as I’d like, life as it is now doesn’t allow the luxurious long swaths of solitude that I need. So, I’m a designer to pay my bills. I’m hoping I can fund my retirement by pursuing painting and not bagging groceries at Publix.
I guess Geddy is a rock star! Duh! But I just wanted to play bass like him….