Move To Los Angeles Or Live A Life Of Regret? by Gary W. Goldstein
Gary W. Goldstein: Before I moved to LA, I was an attorney in San Francisco. It was a very respected position. It was a beautiful city. I had a great life. I had a nice income. I was set and I was deeply comfortable. And it scared the hell out of me.
Had I stayed, I knew for certain (about me), not true of all lawyers, not true of all people, what have you. I knew for me, I was going to wither from the inside. But that was not the right life choice for me on a soul level, on a spirit level, not a role level or a goal level but on a soul level it was…I had to leave. I had to flee. I had to run away, literally.
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And so I did. I ran away and I wasn’t sure exactly how it was going to work out but I thought, I’m going to go to the far end of the state to this crazy place called LA where I knew nobody and I was going to pursue getting into the film business because I so love storytelling. I’d grown up inside of books, I was a lover of story. And most of my friends and colleagues and certainly the other attorneys at the firm I worked at they all wagged their finger at me and said “How can you do that?” “That’s so brave.” “That’s so crazy.” Or something? “We don’t understand?”
And I said to them it’s not brave. It’s the opposite. It’s…it’s…it’s survival. That for me to survive and thrive, I can’t stay here. This is unsafe for me and it’s unsafe because it’s so comfortable. I need to go to this foreign land called Los Angeles. I need to go to a place where I am anonymous and know nobody. I need to stretch my limbs and I need to see if I can make it in this very highly-competitive unknown world of filmmaking. Because that lights me up, from the inside out.
I may fail. I may come crawling back on my knees begging you to take me back Oh Friends of San Francisco. But on the other hand if I don’t do it, I will never know and I’ll always regret it.
That’s one version of many, many, many stories I could tell about…and that’s just me. But I’ve seen it across most of the people…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
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