I’m not a fan of the “fake it ’till you make it” mentality. It seems a tad disingenuous. I believe there’s also a danger in pretending to be something you are not. Unfortunately for me, that mantra’s adherents have a distinct advantage when it comes to making changes.
For context, I gave up a career in corporate IT a couple of years back. I had some health issues, as well as some important personal projects to attend to. The job was interfering with both. More importantly, however, I never felt at home in that field. I certainly knew more than the people who needed me to be in that cubicle. But I never felt confident as an IT professional at any time during my career. I’d dream of finding another job, or even better, a job in another field. But it’s less scary for a person like me to continue living the hell I know, than taking a risk with the hell I don’t. Plus the income was nice. So I stayed at all three of the IT jobs I had, well beyond their expiration dates.
It was my wife who finally convinced me to just submit my resignation after one particularly difficult week. With no backup plan, I did just that. I absolutely do not recommend this path, but I personally have no regrets. As things turned out, I would have ended up leaving there anyway, once the initial shutdown of the COVID 19 pandemic hit our shores. There is no way both my wife and I would have been able to fulfill our full time job roles, and take care of our two young children to the standards we’ve set. Because of this shortly after walking away from my career, I found myself in the role of stay-at-home dad. So my time of unemployment ended up being quite a bit longer than intended.
Presently, public schools are back in-person (have been for over a year), and my 4 year old will be entering Kindergarten in the fall. So the time where I plan to re-enter the workforce is quickly approaching. And yes, I have been giving this some thought over the past couple of years. With an IT degree, and more than 15 years of experience, another job “in my field” is always an option. However, I’ve long fancied writing as at least a pursuit. Why not as a vocation? Well for starters, I wasn’t writing. At least not for others. Which is sad, since in this day and age, the barrier to entry is pretty dang low. So I began this blog (not my first) as a way to test the waters, and maybe create a body of work to serve as a way to grow and eventually showcase my ability.
One of the essays I had been working on turned out to be longer than what I would deem blog worthy. It was essentially a short (5,000 word) non-fiction story based on a specific lifelong interest of mine. The events I wrote about are themselves unremarkable. That is probably its strongpoint, however. It’s relatable to pretty much anyone. Without knowing what would become of this piece, I clicked away at it during my designated writing time, when I didn’t feel inspired to work on anything else. Well that little project graduated from the writing stage to the editing stage a few days ago.
While the line editing has been mostly completed (I’ll argue it’s never fully complete when you are editing your own work), I’m still in the copy editing and proofreading stages. That didn’t stop me from printing up several copies in zine format, and distributing them personally over the weekend. I don’t know what came over me, but I could not ignore the urge to get this story into the hands of people. I know at least two people have read it already, and have given encouraging feedback.
So at this moment, I’m calling myself not just a writer, but an author. I have a (mostly) completed work, published it, and distributed maybe 8 or 10 copies. And you know what? As a self-ascribed author, I now feel both the validation, and more importantly, an intense desire to promote my story and create more.
I’m not going to adopt the “fake it ’till you make it” mantra wholesale. But I must admit there is something to it.
-Wilson