Worth A Try

"Why do you want to do this?" asks the voice in my head as I sift through job postings and networking events and life opportunities. It might be the money, it might be the nice way it works into my life, it might be nothing that makes sense at all. But ultimately, my answer is "It's worth a try."

Perhaps this response sounds like one of defeat. Perhaps it sounds like a lack of focus. But when I think about the things I've done in my lifetime, many of the most helpful, most worthwhile ones have not been those that I targeted. Rather, they have been the endeavors I happened upon, or walked backwards into, or started because, hey, they were "worth a try." Having started in soaps wanting to be a writer, I trained as a PA, a completely different route, because there was an opening, and, hey, it was worth a try. Many years later, I have worked as an AD, Stage Manager, and Director, all as a result of that first step. Though I had never really worked in news (or really thought to), I took a news editing job because, hey, it was worth a try. Now, because of that step, I am both more informed and more widely marketable, able to look in news, documentary, and short-form directions, not just in entertainment ones.

Sometimes, the steps that will really move us forward are not the obvious ones. Rather, they are the ones we take without looking too hard, the ones we allow ourselves to risk without thinking too much. Why do we do it, if it's not a clear step in the right direction? Sometimes, the right direction is not a straight line. Sometimes, the right direction is made up of all the steps we take because we figure, "hey, it's worth a try." And at the end of the road, we discover that some of these "worth a try" steps took us the farthest of all.