closer

I decided on a career change and went from finance to publishing.  It wasn't something I spent a lot of time thinking about-- actually I spent almost no time thinking about it at all.  It was the kind of thing that happened in a snap second.  It felt right, and I knew I had to chase it.


At first, I was really lackadaisical about going into publishing.  I wasn't exactly vigorously searching.  I really thought nothing would come of it for a while because I have no prior publishing experience and I had just started a job in finance so I figured I'd give that job the ol' college try first.  It's kind of like going into the water, some people just jump right in, but I thought I'd dip my toes in my first.  Oh, but something was right, the stars aligned or whatever it was, and I got a call back almost immediately after my search began.


The second I accepted that interview, I knew I absolutely had to chase this.  I was nervous as hell, for a whole week I was riddled with anxiety-- the good kind.  I couldn't wait to get to that interview, and not so I could get it over with, but just because I couldn't wait to step into publishing even if that meant just interviewing for a job and not getting it.  At least if I didn't get the job, I would have had a publisher's door slammed in my face.  I would have made contact.  And I know that sounds crazy and kind of intense, but you see, this whole thing is something I feel very intensely about.  I never felt this way about finance.


You see, it's not that I don't like finance anymore.  My affection for finance hasn't changed, it simply has to take a back row to publishing.  What I realized after I came out of college is that I'm not cut out for finance.  Studying economics in college was great and I loved it and I still love to study it, but I just don't fit in that industry.  I had no passion for it and without that I probably would have burned myself out in that industry eventually.  Maybe it would take a year, maybe 10 years, but at some point it was going to catch up to me.


You know how sometimes in an interview you have to lie a little?  You say you really do love this industry, or that you really love this kind of work, and after you say it something in your back of your head nags at you and says, "wait, is that really true?"  I didn't have those nagging thoughts when I went in for my publishing interview, if anything, I had this voice in the back of my head that kept saying, "yes, this is right, keep going!"  I went in there guns blazing and pulled out all the stops, because I had no stops, and really there was no other way I could have done that interview except with guns blazing.  Everything about it felt right.  When I was interviewing for jobs in finance, every time I walked in and they interviewed me I felt like a different person, but this time around I didn't get that, in fact I felt more the same than ever.  I felt closer to myself than I have ever been.


For years everyone said that finance wasn't something they could see me in, and I never considered what that meant.  So they didn't see me in finance, what's that then?  I'm still going to go after finance, it's what I want, it's what I'm going to do.  I never considered that maybe I don't seem like a person who would work in finance because I'm not meant for it.  Now when I tell people I work in publishing they say, "yes, I can totally see that.  That's the perfect industry for you."