Optimism And Perseverance

I posted a comment recently about the enormous amount of optimism and perseverance required to be an actor or other artist.

One of my friends pointed out that all of the really successful people in the world -- whether they are in business or are politicians or scientists -- also share these traits. It's not unique to being an artist, and sometimes it seems like artists just keep chanting mantras of self-affirmation to themselves in order to feel special.

I agree that there's a common set of behaviors that successful people share. (In fact, if you're interested in a scientific attempt to examine those behaviors and apply them to your own life, I HIGHLY recommend The Luck Factor by psychologist Richard Wiseman.)

However, I also feel that the overall amount of optimism and perseverance required to pursue a career in acting far outstrips the demands of most other everyday jobs -- largely due to the extraordinarily high amount of financial risk and external judgment we expose ourselves to.

If I want to be a successful accountant, there is a fairly predictable education I must pursue. Then I take a standardized test, earn a CPA, and expose myself to perhaps 10 or 20 job interviews to find a position at a company. I have a good idea what my salary will be, based on data from the marketplace and reading the want ads.

I can then reasonably expect to have that job for 2-5 years, if not longer. In fact, I may only decide to leave my position when I see better opportunities. A layoff or sudden firing might happen but this is the exception, not the rule, and in fact my yearly review is largely an exercise to determine what my raise will be.

Barring the unexpected, I can manage my personal, familial, and financial obligations according to a well-defined and stable budget.

Now imagine that the only qualification to be an accountant was a willingness to carry a briefcase and put "ACCOUNTANT" on your resume.

Furthermore, all accounting jobs lasted 1-2 days, two hundred people applied for that one position, and you could only hear about job opportunities if you signed a contract with someone who combed through a private database of want ads and sent you on the jobs they thought you were qualified for. In exchange, they got 10% of your salary and you were happy to pay them when the time came.

Until then, you had to be prepared to drive all over town on short notice to interview with HR people who really just wanted to hustle you in and out as fast as possible because 199 other applicants were waiting in the hall. A good sixty percent of the time you never got called back for a second interview, much less landed that job.

You never found out WHY they were not interested, so if something was wrong with the way you presented yourself at the interview, you were on your own to figure out if you needed to go back to school for even more accounting classes and maybe even an internship or, really, you just didn't have the right briefcase.

When you did get called back, there were twenty other accountants there whose briefcases all looked exactly like yours and the only real criteria for selecting you over someone else was that the department head found the way you wrote your seven's was particularly distinct -- but not so distinct that they were weird or ugly.

Still, half of those second interviews ended with some other CPA getting hired.

When you DID get that job, you walked into the office, balanced the books for two days (often working overtime in trying conditions), and then you would immediately be fired.

Unlike a hired gun business consultant, you were not paid an unusually large amount of money for this short job because there were 19 other accountants out in the hall and even if their seven's weren't quite like yours, they'd do in a pinch if you held out for more cash.

In fact, many times you would be solicited to work for free because there were so many other accountants out there and the HR manager promised "This is a REALLY great opportunity. There's a chance THE I.R.S. might see these books! SERIOUSLY. This will be GREAT for your ledger!"

Those same HR managers would then sit on the balance sheets for months and stop returning your phone calls when you started asking for the copies they themselves promised.

The economic reality would be that for at least your first five years as an accountant you couldn't support yourself and would have to work a second job as a waiter or bartender to scrape up enough money until that big accounting gig finally came in. And God help you if you had a family to support.

Which, when you take it all in, is why I never want to be an accountant. Well, that and my unenthusiastic appreciation of math.

Almost all professions involve some level of perseverance and optimism to achieve real success. I certainly hope some brilliant geek in a lab coat keeps plugging away at a cure for cancer and doesn't give up because he thinks it will never happen or he's tired of it.

However, his career as a scientist does not continuously and repeatedly expose him to reviews that are wholly and completely subjective.

He will seldom lose his job because he looks too much like the department head's ex-boyfriend -- and in fact he can sue on this basis if that is actually the case. He will not have to apply for three grants a week and hope that every four months one of them will come through so he can keep food on the table. He will not be rejected for those grants because his teeth are too big or the department head picked an asian woman for one of the grants and he doesn't think they'd "look right" as research partners.

An actor faces so much arbitrary rejection and relentless skepticism in their daily life that if you don't believe in yourself, no one else will.

And it's not just a psychological survival tool, it's your one (and only) marketing pitch. As an artist, you have to believe you're special. That is what you are selling.

"I paint/sing/write/act in a way that other people can not. Pay me what you think that is worth."

So I do think that the very nature of the arts in America places a premium on perseverance and the optimistically dogged pursuit of opportunity. More so than in most other careers, with the biggest exception being sales.

You have to be an adventurer to be an actor.

Everyone else looks at the effort involved, the rejection you face, and the very slim odds of making a sensible living, and they walk away.

Wisely so, in most cases. Wisely so.

-Tom, who in fact often questions the sensibility of those who don't. Including himself.