They say that money can't buy happiness. I am sure that is true, but to be fair, I've never really had money to test that theory. What I can say, is that not having money causes a lot of anxiety and stress.
Recently, I attended a seminar at the bank my husband works for. He encouraged me to attend as the seminar was going to focus on savings; something that I have not been able to do. So, I went accompanied by a personal banker. There was a panel of speakers who talked about saving money, but the focus of the seminar turned into, more or less, tips for leading a happy life. I remember one of the speakers saying something to the effect that people need to be happy in their line of work in order to feel fulfilled. He encouraged people to find work that combined their passions with making money. My first thought was 'show me where that exists'. We hear about that all the time. Its the American dream! Someone goes from nothing to working on their passion and makes it big! That's what we all want. The problem with that is we live in a country where greed is valued over passion. Just take a look at the types of jobs that tend to make a lot of money versus ones that do not.
I am married to a banker. He is not exactly very high up on the totem pole when it comes to the hierarchy that is a mega corporation. He's a branch manager. Still, he makes decent money for us. In just base salary, I think he makes about $30,000 more than I do a year. Then, he gets annual bonuses which tend to be anywhere from $10,000 to $18,000 and it is a foregone conclusion that these bonuses will happen every year. This is not to mention that his company sets him up with decent health insurance, dental, and a retirement account which the company matches whatever the employee is putting into it. I can confirm that he really likes what he does. Was banking always his passion? I can't say I know that for sure. However, he enjoys going to work every day. He likes the people he works with, and even though I'm sure it can be trying at times, I think he actually likes customer service.
Now, compare that to me. I am the Executive Director of a non-profit theater company. I am at the top of the totem pole for my little organization. There is nowhere higher that I can go. Yet, I'm also at probably the highest salary I will ever make at this job because its a struggle year in and year out to find money to keep the company afloat. We have an extremely small staff who wear many hats. We don't have any sort of retirement plan or health insurance. The only benefit we get as employees is paid time off. Money is always an issue, and as a result I teach acting classes besides working my full time job. Currently I teach five different classes three days a week. I got into this line of work because theater has always been my passion. Its what I knew I wanted to do from a very young age. I was born to be in the theater. I was putting on little shows since I was about two years old. Its in my soul.
I was never naive to the fact that theater would be a tough road, but what I don't think I realized was how many people would be willing to do it for free. There are so many companies that simply do not pay their artists and the artists seem to be fine with that because they know that there is always someone in the wings that would be willing to take that part if it were to be turned down. Just a few months ago, I was asked to direct a show at a theater company that I know has an annual budget of around 2.5 million. The rehearsal process would be for six weeks with rehearsals taking place three to four hours a day, six days a week. That is not counting the extra time that would be required for auditions, production meetings, and the inevitable long hours that are put in during tech weeks. They were going to offer me a stipend of $1,600 to direct this show. When I broke that down with just the hours I was going to be putting in for rehearsal, it came to something like $9.00-$10.00 an hour. I love directing. I love working with actors. It is my passion. I knew that if I turned this down, there would be tons of other directors more than happy to take this stipend and direct the show.
I turned it down.
At some point, I figure that I am 43 years old. I went into this with the idea that theater would be my career. I can't continue working for minimum wage.
It is a little horrifying to me that I have never in my life held a job that offered me any kind of insurance or retirement plan. Yet, I have never been able to picture myself in a job that would be working for a mega corporation. That is just not who I am. I need to know that whatever job I'm doing is serving a greater cause. I can't stand thinking of doing a job just to try and improve the bottom line of some corporation so that they can pay their CEO and shareholders more money.
In my professional life, I'm surrounded by people who work for non-profit organizations as well as educators. None of them make a lot of money that I am aware of. Every one of them got into their line of work because they had a passion for the work that they do. I have been told countless times by friends of mine, who are actors by night and work day jobs to make ends meet, that they think I'm very lucky to have a job where I focus on theater all day. In some ways, I agree with them. I am lucky that way. That said, I am not feeling very fulfilled at this point in my career. I'm sure this is in part due to the fact that I am no longer involved in the artistic side of the company. I gave that up a little over a year ago when I felt that what the company really needed was for me to focus on the administrative duties so that we could hopefully find ways to increase funding while handing over artistic duties to a very capable individual.
In terms of feeling fulfilled on an artistic level, I just get that with my teaching gigs now. Even that can be trying though, because most of my classes currently are with younger children. I do enjoy working with younger children, but it doesn't exactly push me artistically very much. As a result, I feel a big void. I feel a void artistically while at the same time, I'm still struggling financially. It's hard for me to envision myself doing this for the rest of my life. Yet, I can't picture what else I could be doing. I'm also very aware of the fact that I'm getting older and if I am going to make a career change, it should be soon. I see all of these stories where youth is valued over experience, and that is very scary.
It terrifies me that I haven't saved any money and I'm already half way through my work life. What is going to happen when I turn sixty-five or seventy? Will I have to continue to work into my old age and then what happens when I physically can't work anymore? These are thoughts that keep me up at night.
This is the question that continues to plague me. How do you combine your passion with work that is fulfilling while at the same time offers a good salary and benefits? I hope to find answers to that question along this journey.
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