Everyone's Version of Success Looks Different

Maggie Slepian

If I had to list every job I’ve ever had, or suffer the consequence of never dressing my cat up in tiny sweaters again, I fear he’d live the rest of his life without his iconic wardrobe. 

I’ve had a lot of jobs. I started babysitting when I was 13 and teaching swim lessons at 15. At 16 I became a lifeguard, which became my main gig through high school. In college I worked at a fitness center and modeled for the university art department. After college I was a horseback tour guide, climbing instructor, waitress, catering manager, sculpture model, print magazine editor, inside sales manager, barista, writer, online editor, and now film wrangler with a side of stunts. It’s a lot, and none of those jobs except my random two years in sales follows the traditional trajectory of the modern American corporate success story.

I love working. It makes me feel productive, provides structure, and the cash flow from a variety of places isn’t bad either.

Part of my love for working comes from not having a traditional job, and having to get over that mental block of feeling like I should. Over the past year, I’ve been lucky enough to split my time between three different jobs: movie sets, writing work, and the coffee shop. 

I work on film sets for up to five weeks at a time, a job which leaves zero time for anything else. It took me a few movies to figure this one out, but when I did, I wound up with a pretty nice system. I get ahead on any assigned freelance work before the shoots, then let my clients know I’m out of commission for a few weeks. Once the movie ends, I reach out and see if they have any assignments. I’ve worked at the same coffee shop on and off for almost a decade, and whenever I’m in town for longer than a week, I call the owner and ask to be plugged into the schedule. I love being a barista. The people I work with are great, the owner is one of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met, and I know all the regulars. It’s a social outlet that lets me feel like I’m part of the community even though my time at home is punctuated by long stints traveling, thru-hiking, or working on movies.

While these jobs are fun, none of them follow the standard successful pipeline I saw modeled growing up. It’s also not what I imagined for myself. But this works for me! I never work one job long enough to hate it, and I have tons of flexibility. 

It’s important to acknowledge inherent social and economic privilege in this lifestyle. Life has handed me a lot of opportunities, and I tried as hard as I could to play my cards right and develop a structure that worked for me. 

It’s all about priorities, and mine happen to be having as much fun as possible while making a decent income and keeping my flexibility and freedom. Needless to say, this does not work for everyone. 

I have sacrificed two major elements for this: stability and a reliable income. I never know if each movie is going to be my last, or if my primary editors switch jobs and I lose my best writing clients. Maybe the coffee shop will get sick of me leaving town for a month at a time and pull the plug. For this reason, having an ample cushion is paramount in allowing me to work gig to gig.

My income is wildly varied and unpredictable. Some months I make enough to buy Heisenberg every new article of clothing I see. Other times I’ll go 10 weeks without a paycheck. 

Again, this is all about priorities. Just because it looks aspirational to some people, it doesn't mean it works for everyone. This wouldn’t work for anyone who desires stability, and it also just doesn’t happen out of the blue. You need a strong base in a few different realms for people to accept that sometimes you’re out of service for a week, or out of town for a month at a time.

It also takes self confidence in the sense that this lifestyle doesn’t look like the traditional version of success. It took me years to get over this, and I still struggle. I am not a business owner and I don’t have a corner office. Conversely, my siblings have healthy 401k accounts and paid vacation time. They have job titles and it’s easy for them to explain what they do, to fit into the standard version of success.

But what I’ve learned over the past decade (ahhhh I am old) is that success looks different to everyone. If you maintain your priorities and what you’re doing makes you happy, it doesn’t matter if you’re pulling espresso shots listening to your 19-year-old coworker complain about her freshman seminar, while your freshman seminar was so long ago you put up an AIM away message with Augustana lyrics hoping the guy in the built-up triple in your dorm would respond. 

If I had any advice? Figure out your priorities. Just because they don’t look the same as the person next to you, it doesn’t mean they’re any less valid. Just because I wouldn’t be happy working a desk job, it doesn’t mean that job is any less valid. And just because someone else works full-time in the service industry, it doesn’t make them any less successful than the person in the corner office. It might be hard to explain what I do, but I’m learning that I don’t have to defend myself or make excuses as to why my “career path” looks different than other people’s lives.

Maybe your career path means leaving an 8-5 to work as a server a few nights a week, and travel between. Maybe you work as a nanny and pick up travel gigs. Maybe you piece together an income in a way that allows you to pay your bills without being tied down. Maybe you love your 8-5 job and the stability it affords you, maybe you decide to switch careers or go back to school. Just because some of these roles look different than the traditional lifestyle, it doesn’t make any of them less valid. The first step? Figuring out your priorities. You’ll make the rest work from there.