This is not a political blog, and I am a college counselor, not a political activist. But we don’t live in a vacuum. And I am a person with feelings, and this week has left me feeling awful. 

On my drive home last night, I was listening to the podcast series The Wilderness, and in the final episode, host Jon Favreau interviews his former boss, President Barack Obama. I felt a little better listening to someone I admire talk calmly and optimistically about the future. That’s the feeling I want to amplify here this week: optimism. But I don’t know Barack Obama, and I think it’s unlikely that I’ll ever get to interview him for this series. 

However, I do know a whole bunch of incredibly perceptive and thoughtful people who have shared their insights with me over the past year and a half. And because I need a little pick-me-up, I thought I’d collect some of their wisdom here as a reminder that it’s hard to see the end of the story when you’re in the middle of it. 

SARAH HAMAN
“We’re still interested in figuring out parts of ourselves, [and] at 32, people would say that that should be done by then, but there’s always time to do that. You can make mistakes and allow yourself room to breathe and room to experiment.”

MELISSA SMITH
“It sounds super simple when I say it now, but it wasn’t simple at the time; it was very difficult. I don’t know if I’ll ever be the type of person to do something for the first time and not be afraid. But I think through all that I’ve learned, I’m not afraid of being afraid anymore.”

PHIL BELLEAU
“I think a lot of it is just being patient. Putting your head down and putting the work in. Even if you’re the hardest worker, it’s still going to take a ton of time. Maybe your whole life.“

JULIA SCHROTH
“Other people’s opinions of you really don’t matter. You want to be a good person, but you’re not going to get along with everybody. And wanting everybody’s approval can give you a certain amount of anxiety. One of the things I appreciate about getting older, is really coming to that realization.”

AMY BUKOVICH
“We lie to ourselves more than anybody else, saying we’re happy in our current situation. I’m able to read my emotions more quickly [now], and that’s something you don’t learn in school. Just listening to myself more has helped me realize that certain things don’t make me happy just because there are dollar signs associated with them.”

CHRISTOPHER KEMPF
“Trust your heart rather than what you ‘should’ be doing or what someone else says you should be doing. The most important contributions to Western society, I think, the things that make life worth living, that help us live the good life, aren't things that corporations produce or that money buys. They're Beethoven. They're Emily Dickinson and James Baldwin and Joan Didion. Be that contribution to the culture of our species.”

​Igor Hiller is a comedian, or rather a person who does comedy. My conversation with Igor raised an often ignored but vital question about how our careers play a role in the way we define ourselves, for better or for worse. It made me wonder whether this desire for classification contributes to the pressure we feel to choose our careers before we’ve really had a chance to explore. We didn’t come up with any answers, but just asking the question feels valuable. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
 
When you were 17, what did you want to be?
 
I was going to be a corporate lawyer. When I Googled lawyers, they made the most money, and it seemed like a very respectable career and people would think I was very smart and knowledgeable. I liked to read, and making logical arguments seemed sort of within my grasp. And also my dad loved this show called The Practice with Dylan McDermott. So I was going to go to Harvard Law School.
 
How did you decide to attend University of California, Santa Barbara?
 
Because I was going for law school, I did some research and learned that they don't care so much about where you go so long as your GPA is stellar and your LSAT scores are stellar. So I thought I would save money and applied to all the UCs and a couple of the best California State schools. The two "best" schools that I got into were UC Santa Barbara and UC San Diego, and I visited them and Santa Barbara was just unbelievable. I instantly thought, "Well, this is where I should go," and I have no regrets about that. I really loved my time at Santa Barbara.
 
The unique thing about Santa Barbara, and the reason that it has such a reputation for being a party school, is that the vast, vast majority of students live adjacent to campus in this unincorporated township called Isla Vista, which is basically a 10 block by 10 block beach town of 15,000 students. It is a utopia of sorts (maybe it’s some people’s nightmare), but what it taught me is the value of community and what the opposite of loneliness looks like. Every single day, as I was biking or skating back from campus, I would pass six friends out on their front lawns playing beer pong or tanning or studying, and by the time I got home, I'd have four invites to hang out.
 
When college ended and we started our regular lives in regular society, and the way that we've set up living separately from each other, the difference in loneliness was astounding. And it just showed me that there is no substitute for being physically near the ones you love. It was odd because that was definitely not the lesson that I expected to learn from Santa Barbara.
 
How did you choose your major?
 
I had two majors. One was very traditionally pre-lawish, political science, which I’ve always been interested in politics. And then I started taking Russian classes, because I have a Ukrainian background and I wanted to learn the grammar and how to write. I studied a semester in Moscow, and that turned into a second major. It's funny because if I was actually in politics now, I think having those two degrees would be very valuable.
 
How did you get from college to where you are now?
 
I kept on that law school vision in college, and I spent a summer interning for a Stanford law professor. I did a lot of LSAT prep and I graduated summa cum laude with the grades I needed to apply to Harvard Law School. When I was prepping for the LSAT, I just took every practice test that I could find and was getting 99th percentile scores. And then I finally took the LSAT and I think I got a 92nd percentile score, which is fine but it's not Harvard quality. And it really gutted me, because I had worked so hard.
           
Then when you apply to law school, there is a common question that I think pretty much every law school asks which is simply, “Why do you want to be a lawyer?” And I realized that my answer had not really changed from when I was 16, which is that I wanted to be rich, respected, and thought of as very smart. And then I realized that these reasons had nothing to do with the actual work of lawyering, and it was sort of a bizarre, grueling path to get money and attention. So I had this crisis where I thought, "Well, this isn't right," and I started binge-watching every possible commencement address and graduation speech giving advice to young people. And the thing that I kept gravitating toward was comedy, which I've always loved but I was terrified of.
 
I did like a couple of standup sets in college. And I had a "Dear Igor" column like "Dear Abby" in my college newspaper. That was the first time that I had done something publicly comedic, and it went well but I'd never really allowed myself to give it a shot. And I had this vision of myself in my 50s, coming home from work late at night, sitting on the edge of the bed and turning the TV on, and seeing some late-night talk show and thinking, "Wow, I never went for it." So I decided that I would move to LA with the idea that I would become a writer's assistant at Family Guy, because Family Guy would be a good place to learn jokes.
 
I didn't know anyone. And there is no application process to become a writer's assistant. It's not on LinkedIn or Monster.com. There's a “chicken and the egg” issue in entertainment, which is that you need experience to get hired, but you can't get experience without getting hired. The way around that issue is to know that you want to do entertainment when you're in college, and then you do internships all four years, so then people know you and you have an entry-level job waiting for you when you're done. Of course, I didn't do that, so no one hired me and I took a job as a market research analyst.
 
My job basically entailed double-checking Excel spreadsheets to make sure the math was correct, and going through online surveys making sure there were no bugs, calling people for follow-up answers, and eventually, if you work really hard for years, then you can be promoted and you can design market research surveys for Forbes 500 corporations. Man, I did not do well in that job. But it gave me a salary and it gave me the opportunity to start taking improv classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, which was founded by Amy Poehler and three other less famous but great comedians, and that got me into the comedy community.
 
I also started doing stand-up, going to open mics when I got to LA. That, I think, is the hardest thing to do entertainment-wise, because it is grim. It is going alone to open mics at either cafes with people reading in them, or bars when the sun is still up, and there are two people inside, and waiting for an hour or more to do three to five minutes max in front of other comedians who are looking at their notes. And you do that for a while.
 
Stand-ups are by nature individualists, I think, but improv, by definition, is a group dynamic, and you need to support each other in order to succeed. In meeting these improvisors, I thought, "Wow, these people are so nice and so fun,” and what I wanted was to find a group of people who cared about comedy as much as I did and wanted to just joke around all the time. We would have these improv potluck parties with 40 of us in someone’s living room, performing for each other, and I thought it was just the bee’s knees and I couldn't believe that I got to be a part of it. Maybe that sounds lame, but some of these people are probably going to be on Saturday Night Live in a couple of years, so it’ll be cool to tell these stories then.
 
Comedy is one of the few skills that can only be worked on in front of other people. I will never know if something is funny until it hits someone else. It was also an opportunity to get over the fear and to get our reps in because that's the only way to do it. It was also integral to building relationships that later turn into jobs, because in entertainment, the way you get hired is by somebody saying, "I just saw Igor at that potluck, and he did that funny scene. He would be great for this."
 
So I'm working in market research, and I'm doing these classes. And then I heard that a production company that makes some shows that I really like was hiring unpaid office interns, which is like the entry level of entry level. I had a little bit of money saved up, and I quit my job that day, and they were mad at me because apparently, office jobs like when you give them at least two weeks or something, I don't know. I start working in the production office of this company, and I thought this was going to be my way in and I was thrilled.
 
My day-to-day was stapling, collating, and making coffee. And something that I didn't realize is that, they shoot the show in one place and then they have the administrative production office in a different place, so the only people that I was interacting with were a couple of accountants and a second-level producer. I started getting a little twitchy because I quit my job for this unpaid job. So I start nudging them asking, "Can I have some more responsibility?” And they were like, "No."
 
I finally got switched to being a set intern, and I thought, "This is great. I'm going to be able to meet the people that make the show and the writers are there and I'm going to meet them and it's going to be awesome." But a set intern is the lowest on the totem pole. I was placed outside of set, and my job was to make sure that no one wandered in to set. Sometimes I was posted on a different floor to make sure that no one pushed the elevator button.
 
So I was in the building, but again, I got twitchy and I started feeling like I wasn’t making any relationships and I wasn’t getting any experience. So I started getting a little, some would say out of line, and I started wandering into what's called video village, where the director and the writer and the executive producer sit, looking at the monitors when a scene is being shot. I started standing behind them, not very close but just close enough to where I could almost overhear what they were saying, because that to me was the most interesting place. I wanted to be there so badly. But I can't tell you how inappropriate it is for someone to do that. It's just not okay.
 
That space, video village, no one is allowed to go there. And what it led to was me being essentially fired. I had a brief conversation with a very impatient and annoyed line producer who said, "Look, the way things work is you get hired to do a job and for you, that was being an office intern. You do that job until the person above you gets promoted and then you get their job, and you stick around long enough and then you can be in the places where you want to be. That is how it works." I asked her to give me another chance, and she said no. That did not feel good. That spun me out as you can imagine, because I thought, "Oh my God, I'm never going to work in Hollywood."
 
It was such a shock and it pissed me off and I thought, "That's crazy and I don't want to participate in that." And that's what led me and some friends to start a sketch video group. And over the years, that led to opportunities to be hired to write a web series, and that led to writing and producing videos for Lionsgate to promote their film Dear White People, which has now become a TV show, which led to me developing a relationship with the creator of that, who then hired me to be an actor on that show which led to lots of jobs. That came from the experience of working with a group to make our own videos, developing producing skills and writing skills and acting-quickly skills and shoestring-budget skills. And then that opportunity ending gave me space to start helping a friend with a book that he had coming out.
 
This friend, Joel Stein, and his wife, Cassandra, I would count both of them as mentors. Joel was the humor columnist for Time magazine for 20 years, and that was the only thing that we subscribed to when I was growing up. Every week, his column was my favorite. When I was college, I found his email through too much Googling and I sent him a cold email and asked if I could interview him. He responded the same day and said, "If you're in LA, you can come over and I'll be playing with my son, and we can do the interview in person.” So I lied and said that I was in LA when of course, I was in Santa Barbara. I got there like four hours early and he was lovely, and it was incredible meeting him.
 
The other part of it is, I think it's so important to treat with respect and be curious about the wives and husbands and partners of famous people, because the reason that this relationship grew over the years and turned into true friendship is because of Cassandra. Joel and I were talking about career stuff, and she was just coming home and she was curious about what we were talking about, and I involved her in the conversation and didn’t ignore her, which happens all the time.
 
So fast forward to I've just gotten fired, and Joel had written his first book and he needed help with marketing and website stuff, and Cassandra said, "Why don't you ask Igor?" So I assisted him, and then later on, one of their friends who is one of the top TV comedy writers needed an assistant. And he didn’t post it on Craigslist; he posted it on his personal Facebook. They sent me a screenshot and recommended me and I got that job.
 
I assisted him for three years, and I got to learn a lot. It was basically the job that I had been looking for when I moved to LA. My boss, Dan, was the showrunner for a season of the show Last Man on Earth, so I got to be in video village with him. And he wrote a movie with Seth Rogen and Even Goldberg, and I got to go to these meetings and take notes in Seth Rogen's office and see how they developed an idea. And I got to go to pitches with them and see them practice a pitch. And I got to go to premiere after-parties where I got to see all my comedy heroes.
 
When I stopped that assistant job with Dan, and I started putting effort into growing my social media. I saw Instagram as less of a place to post photos for my friends to see, and instead as a place to post comedy videos that I had made, like a resume really. My followers grew by a factor of 10, and that led to a job as a cast member on a sketch show on the Internet with this company called Fullscreen. That was the first time that I was a cast member on this long-running thing, acting professionally every week, and it was really fun. But they ran out of money after a year. And then something happened in my brain where I didn't really know why I was doing it.
 
I sort of forgot what it was about making random comedy videos that I liked and that was of value to people. A lot of the videos that people liked were really, really dumb. It was me dancing like an idiot in public places. And I just started feeling like a bit of a monkey or something. At that point, I wasn't with a group and that show had ended, so I went on a beautiful unemployment. Thank you, the government. And, I guess, thank you, all of you, for paying into it. And me too.
 
Right now, what I’m doing for work is I have a friend who was on an improv team with me for five years, and he has become famous for being the voice of one of the characters in this video game Overwatch, which is one of the most popular video games in the world. So every once in a while, he's invited to these Comic-Cons around the world and I go with him, help him out at the booth when people come and get autographs, and we travel around together.
 
I'm surrounded by supportive, loving people including him, who say, "We love you and we want you to make stuff and when will you be making stuff?" And I don't know. You’ve found me today and in these months in a place of searching and also a bit of a withdrawal from social media. I don't like the effect that it has on me, and I don't like that most of the things that seem to rise to massive popularity come from a fight or a crisis or hypersexuality. I do know that what I love is making other people feel better about themselves and empowered and more able, and I just think it's ironic that I can't do that for myself currently.
 
There is a writer/thinker/marketer that I love named Seth Godin, and he talks about seeing what you do as giving a gift. I understand that intellectually, but I don't really understand that in my heart yet. It would be nice to treat creating things, whether it’s something written or a video or a talk, as a gift, where it's not really about how it's received.
 
Looking back, what seems clear to you now?
 
I think we tell ourselves stories, and if you are going to tell yourself a story, aim for the more hopeful one, the one where whatever you're scared about is more likely to turn out in your favor. Because we don't know which one is true, so you might as well go with the one that ends with you saying, "Wow, I did it."
 
In this last year or two of this kind of challenge for me, part of the pain of it was detaching my sense of self from my career. I felt completely one with my career - I am a comedian. And when that wasn't going anywhere, the pain was unbearable and I had to start prying those two pieces apart. Now I see myself as a person who sometimes does comedy, and it's really helpful because I feel so much better equipped to take care of myself whether things are going well or poorly in my career. And I no longer think that the answer to the problems of my life is a perfect career. 

As a classics major, I am very familiar with the comedic oeuvre that is mocking so-called impractical majors. Not to mention that half the people I share this detail of my life with think majoring in classics means learning how to read heavy books while wearing tweed blazers with elbow patches.  But after doing some research, I learned that classics isn’t even in the top ten of weird college majors, an honor that definitely belongs to University of Connecticut’s BFA in Puppetry, or Texas A&M’s program in nautical archaeology. Yes, some of these majors sound a little goofy, but if you scratch beneath the surface, it’s clear that they’re academically rigorous programs that teach people the essential skills they need to create things we all value.

Fermentation Sciences at Appalachian State University + Viticulture and Enology at Cornell University 

It seems obvious that there’s an enormous amount of chemistry involved in brewing beer and making wine. But these programs also prepare their students to run successful breweries and wineries with courses in marketing and business management. They also teach their students to think critically about these products, with a course on the “moral, ethical and legal aspects of alcohol production and consumption.”
 
Entertainment Design and Engineering at University of Nevada, Las Vegas + Theme Park Engineering at California State University Long Beach
 
You certainly don’t need one of these specific degrees to design roller coasters or develop the technological systems that drive a casino or a theater. But these programs combine a solid foundation in material science and kinetic structures with their respective proximities to Disneyland and Las Vegas to give students hands-on experience with the current issues in their field.
 
Recreation and Leisure Studies at University of North Texas
 
Okay, this one definitely sounds like a made up major, and I’m sure you’re picturing students lounging by a pool or playing guitar on a grassy hill. But in fact, someone had to design that pool and lay out that park, and that person might have majored in recreation and leisure studies. Students combine courses in human anatomy; facilities planning, design, and maintenance; fiscal administration; and inclusion and diversity to prepare for a career overseeing all the places we go to have fun.
 
Packaging at Michigan State University
 
While not the sexiest major on this list, packaging is quite possibly the one that impacts us all the most. Packaging technology plays a role in everything from child-proof containers for medications, to properly sealed food that prevents bacterial growth, to the absurdly large boxes Amazon uses to ship a single pen (true story). And beyond practicality, there’s an artistry to packaging that no one knew better than Steve Jobs, a fact I’m reminded of every time I lift the smooth, white lid of an Apple box and see a perfectly coiled set of ear buds settled in its own nook. 
 
...and in case you were wondering, underwater basket weaving is in fact a class you can take at Reed College, UC San Diego, and Rutgers University. It turns out, the reeds are actually more pliable when they’re wet.

Kat Sauma is a professional dancer currently living and working in Los Angeles. Roughly 15 minutes after I first met Kat, she joyfully flung herself into the ocean next to Santa Monica Pier. And after spending just one day with her, I could tell that she brings that same energy to her work and her life, and I knew that I wanted to hear her whole story. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
 

​When you were 17, what did you want to be?
 
I was very settled at 17 on being a dancer, particularly in the modern/postmodern/contemporary world of dancing. From a young age, I was very curious about ways of collaborating that felt like the dancer is as agent as the choreographer. I also envisioned that I would be a choreographer, and was very determined to figure out how to choreograph without feeding into the authoritative hierarchical structures I saw in most companies. I knew that I wanted to be a pretty self-sustaining artist who could do many parts of producing a show or producing work, so that would mean having many trades and skills.
 
I started dancing at six or seven, but I wouldn't stay in class. I would cry because of separation anxiety and I would have these existential crises thinking about the universe and how tiny I was. Finally, I stuck with it, but I felt terrible in classes. It was not really making sense in my body. I remember standing at a ballet bar and thinking to myself, "Wow, all I want to do when I grow up is be a dancer, but if I have to dance ballet, this probably won't happen for me. I don't think I'm very good at this. I don't like it either." But in my suburb of New Jersey, ballet was the only option.
 
Then, in fourth grade, I took my first modern class. My teacher saw so much potential in me. She talked to the director of the Youth Modern Company, and I was invited to audition. I slowly learned about this complete other way of being a professional dancer and, truly, an artist. By the time I was 14 or 15, she was calling me her protégé, she really took me under her wing. There were moments when I almost didn't stay, but I stuck with it. She appreciated things about me that I wouldn't have seen in myself.
 
I went to a high school where you could dance every day. I did a little bit of Cunningham Warm-Up, learning this way of being, using the body to move through space and time. Merce Cunningham often worked with chance in choreography, and he was very interested in nature. That became a big influence in my way of understanding choreography movement. I was having a very integrated experience.
 
By the time I was a senior in high school, I was learning solos and going to rehearsals with the artistic director's professional company. She also encouraged me to go to American Dance Festival for two summers. It’s the largest dance festival in the US. A lot of companies go there to compete and perform, sometimes have auditions. The cool thing is that dancers come from all over the country and the world to dance together. It’s a lot of networking, getting outside of your bubble, and seeing a completely different way of dancing.
 
 
How did you decide to attend the Ohio State University?
 
When I was at American Dance Festival, I met some people that went to OSU. I applied to at least 10 schools, all specifically for dance, from Massachusetts to Michigan and Ohio to Virginia, and I got into all but one school. I was basically shopping to see what kind of dance people were teaching and what was the style, because I really didn't know.
 
I chose Ohio State because they spoke very highly of collaboration, interdisciplinary arts, and they broke down the hierarchy that I was talking about before. And they spoke of gearing students up to be able to do film work, film editing, photography. They gave you those tools as part of the dance department on top of focusing on choreography and performance and technique and analysis. There was a breadth of knowledge at OSU - the history of dance was very strong. I felt like, if I want to be a dancer, I need to do everything. So I went to Columbus, Ohio for four years.
 
It was trying at times. Because I had been dancing with the Youth Modern Company and then closely with a professional company, I was very much en route to dancing professionally in this postmodern, contemporary world. So the first two years, I was pretty bored in terms of movement. Because of that, I decided to apply for grants, design a self study, and spend nine months in Berlin, Germany. I worked with a couple of very important companies, and then some independent choreographers, and also learned German. OSU was very supportive. When I came back for my senior year, I was able to submit my field experience and get credit, which allowed me to receive research grants from the university for my senior project.
 
How did you choose your major?
 
I got a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Distinction Basis, which means that you have to do a larger project. I wrote a 20-page thesis on the research I did for my senior project. I worked on improvisation as performance, utilizing text, improvisation of spoken word and movement with a group of eight people. Then I presented it in an undergraduate research forum. I won second place in art and architecture for my project.
 
I was also very close to having a minor in geography, looking at political structures, global markets, and how we design government on the local, national, and international level. I just love geography, I love people, and I care about politics and citizen's rights. There was an environmental focus too. I really am very passionate about water conservation and alternative energy sources.
 
How did you get from college to where you are now?
 
I decided to stay in Columbus because there was this arts collective that had started that I was really engaged in. They took over a former meat-processing plant and created artist studios. I talked to them about creating an entire evening-length show in which the dances would take the audience through the whole building, one-by-one.
 
Columbus was affordable, I was able to dive into a really meaningful project immediately, and I had friends that I still wanted to dance with in the city. After being in New York City and New Jersey where I grew up, I was looking at this smaller city and thinking to myself, "This is where people need dance. This is where communities need dancers to remain and build." I felt very passionate about being there amongst artists and musicians and being the only dancer in my community of artists. It's changed a lot since then, which I'm happy about, but at the time, I felt like I needed to give back to my community.
 
Then I had to have surgery on my foot to remove a bone that was broken in half.
Because of this injury, I stayed in New Jersey for a year. I taught dance back at the Youth Modern Company. That was very good training for my teaching, and I got a lot of positive experience from that. But I was very frustrated at the same time. I decided to move to New York after saving money. I was there for two years, and I really did not enjoy myself.
 
The first six months, I was heavily training and retraining, getting my strength back after surgery. As I was doing that, there were so many dancers and so many classes and so many options all the time, but I actually needed to simplify my life at the time. I think it was a clashing of energies. I was also trying to audition there. There just aren't many company structures left. You have to really get to know the companies, build those relationships with people. You don't just show up cold turkey and hope to get the job.
 
I did get to dance with a couple of really awesome projects that changed my life. And I directed, designed, and choreographed six dance films to my friend's music that he is releasing as an EP. I'm really excited about it, watching it every step of the way. It has been really amazing to see the progress.
 
In the time that I was trying to figure out what was going on in New York and not feeling like I was utilizing my energy, I was teaching at a really great school in Brooklyn that I love. I was choreographing in the form of the Youth Modern Company. They really took me in and gave me many opportunities. That was the best part of living in New York for me. The art-making, training, trying to genuinely get to know dancers and teachers and choreographers. But I just felt a huge gap for some reason. I was very restless, feeling like I wasn't really gaining, but I was putting in tons of energy, exhausting myself. So I applied to grad schools for an MFA in dance just to see how that would go.
 
I got into all three schools I applied to, and I received fellowships and teaching appointments from two of them. I was going to be able to teach university undergrad courses, which I thought was amazing; I was making the most money I’d ever made and getting an education in dance at the same time.
 
I went back to the Ohio State University, and I had very positive experiences again. I learned a lot about myself. I met one very important professor there who had danced for a prominent company in New York for 20 years. For whatever reason, we clicked on a deep level, and he really saw something important and meaningful in me as a dancer. But eventually, I came to the conclusion that I wasn't proud to say I was a master's student. It's something that's so full of honor, but I just knew something was wrong with my decision and the timing.
 
I stayed through the whole year, because I felt it was important before giving up a very important position that people had thought long and hard about giving me. I just wanted to be sure that I wasn't supposed to be there. I ended up moving away from Columbus and leaving the school. Then this past spring, I took a workshop with a choreographer who is based out here in LA. I loved her work, and I loved the way she talked about dance. I felt like it was reminding me of the things that I had worked on when I was in high school.
 
I also took a workshop with a woman who had taught me at a dance festival when I was 19. It was all improvisation. I completely opened up in that workshop. I felt like, "Wow, this is what I'm supposed to be doing that I have been denying myself."
After the two workshops, I tried to figure out what would put me in a position where I could train and dance most days, what would give me enough variety, how I could make money in my field, and where there were artists that I wanted to be in conversation with. So I decided to move to LA.
 
I feel really good about it. I've met amazing people immediately. I've fallen into some pretty incredible experiences. I've learned a lot about myself, I've accepted a lot about myself. I've chosen to find happiness and create what I want in the world, but also not be afraid to ask for what I want from people who inspire me. That has really changed my experience and my energy in how people interact with me. I'm kind of excited for this next cycle in my life. I'm very open, open now to engaging in all of these forms of dancing, and not limiting myself as much based on my values.
 
Even from the time I was 17, I really cared about longevity as an artist. I was always ready to take more time to grow, to learn, to build a company, to work on a project. I'm not super big on these immediate products. I love process. I'm young, but I'm learning that there's a lot of value to working in this way.
 
Looking back, what seems clear to you now?
 
I would have pushed myself to leave home again instead of going to New York right away. I know from my experience in Berlin that I thrive when I'm on my own and I need to figure everything out. I think that being close to home was a little too comfortable for me.
 
Also, build a community of people that you can call and talk to about what's going on. Tell them, "You're really important to me. I enjoy that I can come to you if I need something. I want you to know that I'm here for you too." That has completely changed my past year; I don't feel like I'm in the dark trying to figure things out anymore.
 
And go for anything. Don't tell yourself what you can or cannot do. Just do it. I think really trying to understand that the more you spend time with yourself and being good to yourself and having a good self-care practice, the more connected you are to yourself and then others can connect to you. That felt like a major block for me. I wanted to be the best I could be rather than just being good to myself, which then inherently has allowed me to be the best person I can be right now.
 
One more lesson that has totally shifted my perspective is really trying to take things one day at a time. When people ask you about your five-year plan, ten-year plan, don't be afraid to say, "I'm not doing that." You don't owe anyone an explanation for what you're trying to do. It's totally okay if you do a lot less before you can do more. There's so much that you cannot control. The more that you can just figure out the things that you can control, the more you can just enjoy what you do get to do. There are many paths, and there will be people in your field who want to tell you you're doing it the wrong way because it doesn't look like them. But everyone's important. Your field needs you.