my two cents

'I'grand Tired of Being Broke in Fifty.A. Should I Move Back Home?'

Photograph-Illustration: The Cut; Photos: Getty Images

Doing the Most is a special series near ambition — how we define it, harness it, and conquer it.

I'm 26 years one-time, and I've lived in Fifty.A. since I was 21. Like lots of people, I moved here to work in pic (specifically comedy), and I've been scrappy and worked hard and thought that would be enough to become somewhere. Simply after five years of working lots of unlike production gigs on top of waiting tables and doing some improv at dark, I'm feeling defeated. It's insane that the time I felt most financially secure was when the earth was falling apart and I was able to file for unemployment. I have $40,000 in educatee loans that I'll have to start paying dorsum at some indicate, and I've never earned enough coin to save anything. I alive with three roommates, and making rent is ever a squeeze. I thought past this point I'd take something resembling a career, but instead I'one thousand just bankrupt and tired. My dad is encouraging me to move back to Missouri, where I'm from, and get a "existent," boring job, blah, apathetic. But at that place are moments when that level of security sounds appealing. I'm non sure how much longer I can last living mitt to mouth like this, but this city is total of stories of people being similar, "I was on my last dime — and and so I got my large break!" Am I beingness naïve and stupid to keep trying, or am I giving upward too easily if I terminate? How exercise I know when I'm screwing myself over? I feel lost.

I can't tell you lot exactly what to do adjacent. But I can say with certainty that in that location are more than options than what you're considering. You're looking at your situation in very black-or-white, succeed-or-fail, stay-or-go terms, which is a normal reaction when you're overwhelmed. The truth is, you may take a much bigger spectrum of paths to choose from. And that might also seem stressful, but know that most of them are probably improve than what y'all're doing correct now.

First of all, the fact that y'all are struggling and uncomfortable is not a sign that yous are weak or don't take what information technology takes to "make it." Your discomfort is a betoken that what y'all're doing isn't working for you lot, and that'south useful information. It'due south also known as intuition, and you should pay attention to information technology. It means you're getting ready to brand a change — a good thing!

"For nigh people, there is non a self-axiomatic path betwixt doing the work that yous love and having financial stability and security," says Amanda Clayman, an L.A.-based financial therapist and founder of the Fiscal Wellness Center at the Actors Fund. In that location are systemic reasons for this; it's non personal or a sign that there's something wrong with you. "In the entertainment business, specifically, there are a lot of structural challenges," she adds. "The work is variable for reasons that are completely beyond your control."

In other words, y'all tin can practise a nifty comedy gig and even so not get hired for another project for months or years just because of the whims of the manufacture. This is not (and will never be) your dad'south vision of a nine-to-v job for which you get regular raises and promotions based on adept functioning. So don't let his picture of success and advancement — which is well significant, I know — make yous feel fifty-fifty worse most something that'due south already hard and unpredictable.

Still, it sounds equally if you've run into a conflict between the office of you that identifies as an artist (and volition do whatever it takes to chase that high of creating something you lot're proud of) and the part of you that is homo (and needs to pay rent and afford groceries and feel physically condom). Here is the most important affair to remember: Those things practice not need to be mutually exclusive. You lot seem to retrieve you lot tin take one or the other. Only y'all tin take some degree of both. They just may not look similar what you're currently picturing.

"The creative person might feel willing to take any sort of deprivation," says Clayman, "but the human being is perhaps less okay with that and would prefer to know where the adjacent meal is coming from." This tension often comes to a breaking point after a couple of years, she adds. "In the beginning, we're all like, All right, this is hard, just I'1000 scrappy and I'1000 paying my dues. Then we go to the point where we're like, Oh my God, is paying my dues e'er going to terminate?" Unfortunately, at that place's no clear reply.

So what practise you do to satisfy both the creative and the human part of yourself? This will take some experimentation. Yous don't need to pack your bags and slink home to Missouri, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to take some kind of break from what y'all're currently doing — which could potentially involve taking a trip back to your hometown to see how it feels, subletting your place if you tin, and stepping dorsum from some of your L.A.-size bills for a few weeks or months.

"Creativity does not bloom when you are stressed out about coin," says Kat Koh, a San Francisco–based career coach for people who piece of work in creative industries. "It sounds like you are experiencing burnout at a really deep level. Your cortisol levels have been high for a long fourth dimension, and that's bad for any sort of thought process because you can only react to what's correct in front of y'all."

Koh advocates doing whatever you lot tin to give yourself some fiscal animate room now fifty-fifty if it means cutting dorsum on comedy gigs for a niggling while. "Information technology sounds like you demand space and security — basically, a brain-rehabilitation stint," she says. "This doesn't hateful you're quitting everything you're doing full stop. But peradventure if you lot just focus on making and saving coin for a bit, you'll feel a lot better if you have a couple chiliad dollars banked and so y'all're not constantly worried about rent and groceries."

Another exercise y'all can practise is approach this situation in reverse and ask yourself what information technology would look like to feel comfortable. "Effort to create a upkeep for what information technology would accept to have a more acceptable life in realistic terms. For some of u.s.a., that would exist living without roommates. For others, information technology would be to have plenty greenbacks saved for emergencies or investing something for the future," says Clayman. "Then look at those numbers and ask yourself, In my current state of affairs, how could I become there?"

Here are some ideas: I once met a comedian who did improv icebreaker gigs at corporate events to fund her less lucrative projects. I know some other who figured out that her sweet spot was writing witty cloth for companies' websites and social media and now makes a corking living every bit a copywriter for big brands. (She nevertheless does stand up-upwardly at dark.) And I recently met a performer who has done huge shows at major national theaters but continues to work as an uncomplicated-school teacher to make rent. These people are all extremely good at the various things they do. The point is in that location'south no shame in having a task that pays the bills, and in many cases, it will help fuel your inventiveness.

"Nosotros all need to have some congruence around our lifestyle values and our earning values," says Clayman. It sounds equally if the crux of what you lot're dealing with right now is that these two values aren't lining up — which is normal, though that doesn't brand information technology less painful — and you need to figure out what will bend to fit the other. "The fundamental truth of that is that the entertainment manufacture is not going to provide a high level of stability. And then y'all have to decide what level of that is okay with you and what else you tin can do to make information technology work," she says.

She recommends looking at the "stages of change," a behavioral model that's frequently cited in studies of people who are trying to make a major shift in their lives (quitting an addictive addiction, for example). According to the model, people do non brand changes quickly and decisively; instead, they move gradually through 5 stages: pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. It sounds similar you're somewhere between the pre-contemplation and contemplation stages, which can be the well-nigh difficult because you haven't decided what to practise yet, then it feels like flailing. Recollect to be patient with yourself. Fifty-fifty if you lot're just thinking near what to practice adjacent, that's even so role of the work.

'I'm Tired of Being Broke in L.A. Should I Move Dorsum Dwelling house?'