I have been reading so much about Internet Marketing and SEO and E-Commerce and Blogging that I’m sick of it, but I have to do it. While Internet Marketing and all that comes with it aren’t exactly passions of mine, they are the means to my ultimate goal, that underlying passion that keeps moving me forward. Internet Marketing is what I have to work with today. It’s a way to tie the interests I do have into a product I believe in to produce some income so that I might get where I’m going faster. It also keeps me from having to resort to a 9-to-5 I have no personal investment in (though I’m certainly not above taking one if it means reaching my goal).
The point is, I’m doing something that I don’t plan on doing all my life or most of my life or even for the next few years, all for the purpose of being able to do this one thing that I want to do above all others: Computer Animation.
It’s my personal belief that everybody who is involved with Internet Marketing has an underlying passion that pushes them forward. Internet Marketing is a lot like playing the bass guitar. Few people actually have a passion for it, but if you’re willing to do it you can get in the band. And that’s certainly how I feel.
Patiently Working Hard
I used to be opposed to the idea of waiting and working to get what I want. I saw what waiting and working had gotten my parents and my grandparents and I didn’t like it much, so I ditched it. In doing so, I ended up throwing out the baby with the bathwater and only recently have I realized my mistake.
Generation Y (or whatever they are deciding to call my generation) is a ridiculous generation generally speaking. I used to believe we were somehow different and justified in our attitudes, but we aren’t. In general, we are impatient and we have this attitude that the world owes us exactly the lives we want. As Matt Cheuvront discussed in his latest post, we are a generation whose motto is “Our Best, Now.” Want to be a writer? Quit your job now and do it. Want to start a restaurant? Quit your job now and do it. Want to travel the world? Quit your job now and do it.
I would call this attitude “Life as Montage” because it’s too much like the movies. Two minutes of intense training scenes with an inspirational rock song blaring in the background and you are instantly ready to take on the world and do exactly what you want to do. But it doesn’t work that way.
If you really want something, you shouldn’t expect to glide through life so easily and still be able to attain it. You probably weren’t born into the ideal family, you probably don’t have the ideal income, you probably aren’t living in the ideal place, you probably don’t know the ideal people. The same is true for everyone pursuing their passion. Those things aren’t obstacles to your dream unless you allow them to be. Successful people have worked through much worse.
World’s Most Successful Ex-Truck Driver
When the film Avatar was released in December, it quickly set itself up to be the highest-grossing film of all time and to make James Cameron arguably the most successful film director in history. But James Cameron’s rise to the top wasn’t an easy road.
He was born in the town of Kapuskasing (not exactly the film capitol of the world) in Ontario, Canada to an electrical engineer father and a nurse mother. His family moved to California in 1971 and Cameron started attending Fullerton College where he studied physics and eventually majored in philosophy. While in college, though, his main passion was film.
Cameron often visited the University of Southern California’s film archive. Of that time, he said he was
completely self taught in special effects. I’d go down to the USC library and pull any thesis that graduate students had written about optical printing, or front screen projection, or dye transfers, anything that related to film technology…if they’d let me photocopy it, I would. If not, I’d make notes.”
After college he continued to pursue his passion for filmmaking and wrote whenever he found the time. He took a series of jobs as a machinist and a truck driver while pursuing his underground education. It wasn’t until the original Star Wars was released that Cameron decided to quit his truck driving job.
Even then, Cameron didn’t just start trying to get directing jobs for major studios. He wrote his own movie, raised some money, bought the equipment for filming it and used the opportunity to learn as much about the process as he could. Meanwhile he started as a miniature model maker and worked his way up from there.
Realize You Are Starting At The Bottom
The lesson to be taken away from James Cameron’s rise to success is that all your success must be earned. You start at the bottom rung of the ladder and you take your time moving up, absorbing all the knowledge you can along the way. People aren’t born successful. They make their success.
As a member of Generation Y, I can say that expecting everything to fall in place the minute you start pursuing your passion is a stupid expectation. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. When you really want something and start to pursue it, it usually gets tougher. This is sort of like the Universe’s way of deciding who actually deserves to do it more. If you give up so easily and cry like a baby when things don’t work out, you clearly don’t deserve to live your dream.
It takes work. Lots of work. Hard work.
Realize that and you’ll move forward much faster than I have.
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- How To Break Free From The Conventional Life
- The Beginner’s Guide to Lifestyle Design
Hey, I'm JD. I'm a writer, web designer and contrarian entrepreneur. Wage Slave Rebel is a place where I (and others) explore alternative and ethical ways to earn a living apart from the corporate hierarchy. The goal of this site is to help people escape wage slavery and start reaping the full rewards of their skills and passions. 
Life as montage…love it man – hell of a way to put it and your so right. That’s almost the mindset our generation has – that you’ll do some training, let Clubber Lang kick your ass for the first few rounds to get him tired, then go for the knock out (sorry, all I can think of here is Rocky training montages).
It does take hard work – more than 2 minutes in retrospect. A lot of hard work, a lot of picking yourself up and trying again – to get to the places we want to be in life. Great post!
And this for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s28vNyjOlbc
Haha. The video! I honestly should have been expecting that, but I wasn’t. Hilarious. I’m really glad you could drop by, Matt! In your post you were saying so much that I was feeling. I really appreciate it.
That last bit about the Universe deciding whose worthy is fabulous! I have always believed that the fittest survive. Even in this internet world I have recently been trying to break into, perseverance and hard work will see me through. .-= Lisa´s last blog ..Spring Has Sprung, Almost =-.
Perseverance is key. Once you get over failure, I honestly believe you can do anything. Getting over failure is something I constantly struggle with, but I’ve come leaps and bounds in the last couple years. I’m finally pushing forward to the kind of life I want.
Ira Glass of “This American Life” did a great interview talking about “The Vision Gap” and the frustration it caused him to mentally think he was way better than he actually was. Here’s the video with a little recap I did: http://www.tomkrieglstein.com/2009/10/the-vision-gap.html
I loved the Vision Gap video. Anyone reading this comment, check out Tom’s link above. Really interesting concept that relates to Malcolm Gladwell’s “10,000 hours to be an expert” theory.
This is an excellent post JD!
Not sure what generation label I have been slapped with but I used to have an entitlement mindset as well, thinking that all of the great things in life that I wanted was somehow supposed to just fall in my lap.
A few years ago this changed and I decided to make a plan to enable me to do exactly what I wanted to do. The only difference. Instead of waiting for some opportunity to fall out of the sky, I paved my own road.
During that time (4.5 years) I had to deliver pizzas while slowly taking classes at the local community college. My wife had to graduate, and 2 years after realizing my passion (to help others live debt free), I am so much closer to making it happen.
Last month I quit my job, but it was after tears of putting up with it because I knew I had to. It wasn’t always fun and there were times I wanted to just quit. I remained patient while reminding myself of my goals and where I wanted to be.
This year I will be becoming certified as a financial counselor so I can finally start my passionate work as a financial counselor. I made it happen by doing things I didn’t want to do. It paid off.
Sorry for the long response JD, I just wanted to share my story, to help reinforce your point of this article.
Thanks for this awesome read! .-= Brad Chaffee´s last blog ..Great Financial Advice From The In-Flight Safety Handbook =-.
I’m glad you took the time to make such a long comment. I love your story. Delivering pizza while pursuing your dream makes your passion seem that much more authentic and will make reaching your destination that much more worth it. Good luck with everything, Brad! Keep me updated!
YES! Great post!
So it’s not a cliche that successful people do what everyone else doesn’t want to do?
Sometimes I wonder if there are so many people going after the glamorous jobs, lifestyles or businesses, that there are huge opportunities out there for someone to kick ass with a waste removal company.
Here’s a part of Randy Pausch’s last lecture series you might like that seemed appropriate: “… remember, the brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”
I’m also not sure if the “destination” method of going after goals really works that well for most. I think it’s important to recognize that you may not “make it”, in some fields will not make it and to go after what you would go after even if you knew there was a great chance that you would fail or fall short of your dream. I think that’s the only way to determine if you enjoy the process of the day to day things you have to do to get the dream vs. just some idealized vision of what you’ll have when that dream comes true.
I had forgotten about what Randy said. Really glad you posted it because this says what I was trying to say so much more eloquently.
I’m not a fan of destination stuff either. I think people should aim for something specific, but not too specific. Going with James Cameron, he just wanted to be a filmmaker. I’m sure he didn’t say “I want to have the top two highest-grossing movies of all time.” We need to work toward something, yet be agile enough to take advantage of whatever opportunities come along.
Ahahahaha…that “Life as Montage” bit is as hilarious as it is true.
So, you’re saying, that I have to actually do more than punch the air while listening to “Eye of the Tiger” to win the championship? C’mon… .-= Christina´s last blog ..Math Anxiety =-.
I have honestly thought to myself at times, “What I really need right now is a montage.” Of course, one never shows up, but that doesn’t stop me from wishing!
This is a great piece of writing, my friend. It actually just got me very inspired to keep pushing through my day, exactly what I needed. You are so right about our generation feeling like we are entitled to everything. Life is not like the movies! It’s something that really took me a long time to realize. I’ve been so focused on the quick escape from the 9-5, which has caused me a lot of worry and stress. Just recently I started focusing on the slow escape. For example, for the next 9-12 months I’m going to work for 1 hour per day on my affiliate sites. It’s a slow process, but I’m really confident it will pay off, plus I won’t be stressed out with trying to move too quickly.
Once again, very well done. .-= Nate´s last blog ..holy crap it’s been a while =-.
Yeah, if I could go back to my “Quick Escape Period” I probably wouldn’t drop my job so fast. I might have switched jobs, but I definitely would have gone the slow and steady route. The stress is overwhelming, but I’m now at a point where things are more or less under control and I honestly believe I’d have better luck focusing on my own thing.
I’m working on a pretty big project now and once it’s finished in the next six months, I’m hoping to slow down a bit.
Beautiful post, JD.
It takes humility to start from the bottom. The amusing thing is that the people who have their paths paved for them by others never seem to rise very far.
It’s an honor to have to starve, sweat, and fight to get what you want.
As an aside, I hope you’re working on animation on the side, or perhaps figuring out how to implement it into your current work. You can certainly make use of it if you’re marketing anything.
I started growing the most as a writer when I began doing it for a living, even though the only work I could secure diverged wildly from my ideal career.
When I was a teenager, my ideal career wasn’t to write copy for Aerosmith memorabilia sales sites, promote crochet kits, hawk purses, sell custom sneakers, or advertise monster truck rally tickets, but I gleaned much from the experience.
It gave me a paid education, if that makes sense. .-= JC Hewitt´s last blog ..The Blogger About Town =-.
That makes complete sense.
While I do this internet marketing/blogging thing, I have taken a few steps in the Animation direction, but it’s a pretty intimidating field. I feel like there is a huge learning curve, at least for me, so I’ve only been able to play around with it on a very amateurish level. Eventually (later this year I hope), I want to attend AnimationMentor.com and learn from the masters.
But while I’m doing internet marketing/blogging, I will say that it’s not a pain in my ass in any way. Most of the time it’s fun and there’s lots to be learned from it. I especially enjoy the blogging bit.
I’m so glad to see someone from your generation say this. As someone for one generation up, it has baffled me why this younger generation thinks they can obtain success, money, and fame without putting in the hard work and time it takes to acquire this things.
Excellent post and one I will be sharing. .-= Heather Villa´s last blog ..Weekend Reading: My fav’s from this week: 3/12/10 =-.
I think that it might be possible to attain “success”, “money” and “fame” without putting in hard work. I’ve seen plenty of people in my generation who I can look at and say, “How did that happen?”
But what bugs the hell out of me is that obtaining success and money and fame without hard work doesn’t result in mastery of any kind. Something I’ve found out in the last few years is that I apparently value mastery above all else. If I was rich or famous without feeling like an expert in my field I’d be a failure in my own eyes. And I think that will always be true.
Mastery takes hard work and that’s why my generation is typically only good at claiming to be knowledgeable or inventing new fields for which they can claim mastery (like “social media expert” WTF is that?)
Great article. I couldn’t agree more. -David .-= David´s last undefined ..If you register your site for free at =-.
The “entitlement mindset” is tricky to evaluate.
On the one hand, yes, such mindsets do exist. Some people feel like everything ought to work perfectly for them, and if something goes wrong then it’s not their fault and they’re not going to fix it.
On the other hand, it’s classic nonsense that “normal” people accuse everyone else of having an “entitlement mindset”, as in “Get serious. You think you can make money online? You think you can escape 9-to-5? You think you’re better than the rest of us? You’re selfish. You just think you’re entitled to something.”
See how that works?
You said: “If you really want something, you shouldn’t expect to glide through life so easily and still be able to attain it.”
Yes, we shouldn’t underestimate the challenge. But neither should we overestimate the challenge. Some people have the former problem, where they figure that very little effort is necessary. Most people have the latter problem, figuring that doing-what-they-love is so gosh-darn hard that it’s not worth the effort. In both cases, people don’t work hard enough to make their dreams come true.
It’s interesting. .-= Sonicsuns´s last blog ..Use Firefox (or maybe Chrome) =-.
Seems I’ve joined the party a bit late, but yes, what a great post. I appreciate the honesty, and thanks for the kick up the butt. It is always needed.
But James Cameron makes bad movies.