“Everything happens for a reason” is a phrase I heard a lot growing up because it was my mom’s favorite refrain, and I always resented it. And not just as a militant teenage atheist (one of the worst kinds of teenagers) but also as a young adult. I fundamentally do not believe that cosmic forces (whether an intelligent designer or the whims of an unknowable universe) conspire towards a particular end. My disbelief in fate and in soulmates follows the same line of thinking- at my core, I think things just happen and there’s no set in stone conclusion to them. They happen as a result of millions and billions of tiny circumstances and choices, and I find that often the reaction to a belief that “everything happens for a reason” is passivity. Either you’re the kind of person who tries to find a silver lining after a mass shooting at an elementary school or you become so disillusioned by your lack of control to a perceived personalized agenda of misery from the universe that you give up entirely. I find both of these reactions highly suspect.
That being said, I’m also trying to be a happier person, and that’s been tough these past few years for some well documented and some less public reasons. And after living with my mom for a few months in early 2021, while Quinn and I were in between NYC and LA, I started to notice how much comfort and resolve her philosophy afforded her on a day to day level. So I got curious.
We may disagree on the assumption that there’s a cosmic plan, but I do think there’s something really powerful in the outcome of that worldview. I failed to account for the middle ground between the two passive extremes I mentioned in the first paragraph: it’s not necessarily about trying to discern the overall plan and assuming good faith in the intentions of a mysterious entity in charge even amidst tragedy, and it’s also not complete and utter nihilism. Option three is that instead of spending your time wallowing in “what if,” we instead embrace “what’s next?”
Intent matters in philosophy, and so does acknowledging that taking a philosophy to its logical extremes is rarely productive as far as practical application goes. So for me, opening myself up to curiosity and opportunity rather than walling myself off with cynicism and despair is interesting. After my third existential breakdown in as many weeks culminating in the loss of an opportunity I’d resigned myself to, I realized that the status quo of how I approached my life and my career were not sustainable.
Despite my identity and self esteem being both very wrapped up in my writing, I have not had a lot of success finding work as a writer. I have had only slightly more success in writing contests that will hopefully open up work opportunities as a result of placing highly. And it’s easy to go down the rabbit hole of imposter syndrome and alternatively shout from the rooftops about how the entertainment industry systematically excludes women and queer people so why would I ever think I had a chance in the first place even if my writing is as good as my self esteem needs it to be.
My reaction to my lack of measurable progress as a working writer (TV writer specifically- hey friends, if you have a manager or know a manager looking to represent an aspiring queer TV writer with a mystery specialty, hit me up!!) is often either
A. I’m not good enough and never will be or
B. I’ll never be good enough due to a systemic unfairness that will never change
Bleak shit, friends. Real bleak shit. And also, crucially and conveniently, both out of my control.
There was a point a couple weeks back where, amidst a particularly rough few concrete setbacks and a cumulative burnout mental health state, I took stock of those conclusions and decided that everything was hopeless and I needed to completely reevaluate my priorities and my aspirations and make some big changes. I made some decisions towards giving up on my dreams and put 100% of my eggs and hopes into those baskets and moped around for a few days.
Except my solutions to my problem (a lack of measurable progress as a working writer) were as outside of my control as my conclusions to why the problem existed in the first place. So of course, nothing changed and I was thrown into even more existential misery and questioning. I had become my own worst faith interpretation of what I assumed people who believe “everything happens for a reason” did. I was acting against my own beliefs because I just wanted it to be someone else’s problem since clearly everything I was doing wasn’t working, so why stress instead of just doing the easy thing and giving up?
I was talking to my mom in the midst of this crisis, and she pointed out that my loss of the new basket of eggs I’d made up for myself might be a blessing in disguise since, by my own admission, it was a basket of eggs I’d made because I’d decided to give up on my dreams. But that basket hadn’t worked either, which, under her worldview, meant that giving up clearly wasn’t the right choice. She also pointed out I was maybe being extremely dramatic and to calm down a little bit. Fair. A fair and correct assessment.
And that’s when it clicked for me. That basket I’d just lost represented an admission I would no longer actively pursue the thing I have two degrees in that I moved across the country to be more hireable for! Why wasn’t it a celebration that I had lost my excuse to take an easy, more personally miserable route?
As I was rebuilding my own objectivity (after claiming a sorely needed day off and a bit more sleep), I reevaluated my previous assumptions in this new framework.
A. I’m not good enough and never will be.
The former might be true; certainly what I was writing was not what screenplay contests were generally looking for. However, my feedback was consistently validating of my dialog, character development, and genre bending, which combined with lifelong high marks in writing and the public response to my produced work makes the latter assumption unlikely. What if I had gotten successful years ago when I first started submitting scripts to contests? Who knows, but that’s not the world I live in.
Instead: what next? I need to read more scripts to see what IS successfully placing at screenplay contests, I need to develop new samples since my older ones clearly weren’t quite what was being looked for, and I need to get more feedback from writers I respect to continue to level up my craft.
B. I’ll never be good enough due to a systemic unfairness that will never change
This is a pretty similar sentiment to the new flavor of climate change denial: sure, it’s real, but it’s too late to do anything about it so why bother. And it’s not wrong that I’m at a systemic disadvantage from access to a number of things that would make seeking a career in television easier/more streamlined/more likely. But so are tons of people far more systematically disadvantaged who get jobs and opportunities every day, some they make themselves and some that they get through the “normal” channels. Is it hard? Yes. Is it too hard? I can’t control that, but I CAN control if I’m willing to keep finding ways to stay in the game. And I’m thankful that with a clearer head and a loss of my easy way out basket I have the space and energy to say that yes, for now, I’m still here ready to play. My basket loss may not have felt good, and may not have been pre-ordained, but I find I feel a lot better that it was lost, given this new perspective.
So I started asking people for connections and setting up coffee dates with people who knew more than me, and have more access and insight than I do. I joined a writer’s group. I started the process of producing the one piece of writing (the Dead on Arrival web series script) that’s had any success this year in writing competitions. I don’t think everything happens for a reason, but I’m excited to look at what I have rather than what I don’t and make decisions based on abundance rather than abdicate control to save me from more potential heartbreak. What’s next over what if.
As I said, intention matters, so my intention here is not to preach the extreme that every professional frustration and setback is automatically the trigger for a different door to open. But I am ultimately in control over whether I go find a different door to knock on anyways. I can mourn the loss of opportunities I was excited about without fully giving up and spending six months ruminating on the loss and the failure and the assumptions I can make about my own worth as a result of them. When I’m on a film set and something goes wrong, I don’t have time to wallow and complain, I have a film to make so I figure it out. I surround myself with smart, capable people and we find a solution. So why is that not how I also approach my own life and career?
This brain shift is just one facet of some changes I’m trying to make in 2022 because not only was my mindset not sustainable, but a lot of things I’ve done or committed to out of fear or apathy or a misguided sense of duty are rapidly revealing themselves to be unsustainable as well. And I want to enjoy my life, and feel energized rather than drained by the things I spend my time doing. Reinvesting time in non-monetizable hobbies like painting and gardening in 2021 was a great start, and I’m excited by being more curious and open to what’s next.
I can’t control everything in my life (terrible news), but what I can control, I intend to be more conscious about. I want to spend my energy on joy and possibility rather than on finding the most biting and funny ways to wallow in self indulgent misery.
Have you found yourself completely rethinking your own worldview since the pandemic? I’d love to hear from you if so! Only vaccinated people can answer.
