Trying to "Make It"

My good friend Janet, a fourth year ceramics major, is in the midst of her major’s hell – preparing endlessly for her art show to be held in early March. My friendship with Janet has really opened my mind to the intensity in time, effort, and hardship artists face at all levels. She’s taught me about the tough criticism her pieces of art are subject to on a daily basis by her professors. She’s taught me about the extreme hours she spends molding, sculpting, and firing, and hopefully avoiding any permanent damage from things like toxic chemicals and kilns. My friendship with Janet has provided me with a much deeper appreciation of the arts and the efforts artists face in trying to “make it.”

As I reminded Janet last week, there are two types of people in the world – those who have “made it” and those who are “trying to make it.”

Those that have already made it are real people with real jobs who get compensated appropriately for the work they do. They have conquered their fields or, at the very least, have been in their field long enough to understand its intricacies – they’re the people who become mentors, trying to mold the “up-and-comers” into the next leaders. They’re the faculty members with tenure, the administrators holding titles of “director”, teachers who taught the parents of their students – they have nice offices/workspaces, get the respect they have earned, and a cushy salary to make life pretty good.

Conversely, those who are “trying to make it” are often young and right out of school or slightly older individuals who have switched careers. They are trying their hardest to learn the ins and outs of their fields – they’re looking for mentors who can help them navigate the intensity of their new situations. They’re the faculty members who are trying to get tenure, the graduate assistants doing full time work to supplement school, the interns doing everything under the sun that’s asked of them to prove their worth, the resident physicians in those final preparations for becoming a doctor – these too are real people with real jobs. They don’t always get compensated for the work they do, but they suck it up, do it, and hope to eventually enter the esteemed category of those who have "made it."

I’ve spent the last three years “trying to make it”, as a graduate student and now as an intern. I can commiserate with all of those grads, interns, etc. out there like myself who are trying to make it. I hope those of you out there who are trying to make it will find, as I have, that the hard work will eventually pay off, people do appreciate your efforts, and it will be “worth it” in the long run. I wish you the best of luck and remind you of the following:

Just remember, it could always be worse. You could be one of those crazy bastards trying to make it as a "reporter" that news stations send into the middle of tornadoes, winter storms, and hurricanes to send live reports to the commoners sitting on their couches. Clearly, this is borderline suicidal.

For my dear friends out there, like Janet, still trying to make it like myself – chin up, friends, it will all come together soon.