Gift Giving

Sam Bertken
Sep 4, 2018 · 3 min read

In my last year of college, touring a theater production to Varanasi, India, I was told that one of the greatest sins in this life is to withhold one’s gifts from the world.

At the time, I was stunned by this statement. Of course, each day luminaries in laboratories, studios, rehearsal spaces and lecture halls share their figurative gifts from a place of generosity. From that moment on, my aspiration in this life was to join these humanistic heroes, sharing my gifts with the intent of bettering the world.

That was six years ago, and as of today I have been through two jobs, roughly two and a half years apiece, that employed approximately zero of my innate gifts and exhausted my creative faculties on a daily basis. The industries where my skills belong are notoriously difficult to break into. And I don’t want to be a starving artist- I want a family and home. I live in the most expensive city in the world. And I am certifiably ADD.

It’s true that everyone has problems, but if anything you just read resonated with you, I think you’ll like where I’m going with this.

I am not going to press “snooze” on my goals and jump into another job for another two years, only to walk out the other side with even more potent feelings of anxiety and depression. Every choice, from here on out, will be a strategic step towards achieving the center of this rudimentary diagram:

Constantly aiming for that center bit.

There is no shortage of self-help instructions out there about finding your own vocation, but achieving this specific core is more of an art than a guide. To point, as I continue this journey, I will be sharing my personal answer to the following questions with you:

  • How much time did you have to put in?
  • How did you figure out how much time you had to put in?
  • Where did you look for work?
  • What tools did you use?
  • What kind of approach did you use for different prospects?
  • How did you swallow your irrational fear that a hiring manager would respond to your inquiry with an envelope full of arsenic for even attempting to waste their time?
  • A big fat etcetera

You know, the really granular stuff.

I am by no means an expert, but I am feeling generous, and if I can answer these questions for myself, I think that will help you do the very same. At the end of all this, we will both know more about finding our way through the work world.

If you are an artist, maker, or other kind of creative entrepreneur who is looking to enter the workforce for the first time, or feel trapped in a dead-end job that will never allow you to realize your full potential on a daily basis, I would love to have you along for the ride.

This blog will update a few times a week. If you don’t see an update for a while, please feel free to shoot me a quick email asking what the hell is taking so long at sam at sam bertken dot com.

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