Author’s note: Casey Felix, the journalist for this interview, is not a real person. She is a figment of Jen’s imagination and the protagonist in a number of short stories and partly-written novels from when Jen was in high school. The two ladies ran into each other a few weeks ago when Jen was sorting through some old papers; the following is a transcript of how that conversation went.
(Part two of the levelling up project can be found in the articles section at RivalCastMedia.com)
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CF: So the last time we talked, about ten years ago now (!!!), you were set on earning yourself Cosmopolitan magazine’s Fun Fearless Female of the Year award by the time you turned thirty. How did your cover turn out?
JM: (laughs) Ah, Photoshopped, actually.
CF: Whaaaaat? So what happened?
JM: Life. I don’t think any of us really understand how harsh the world can be until after we’re out of school. When our parents were growing up, the idea was that if you went to college and graduated, you got a good-paying job and some stability, bought a house, started a family. There was a flow to it. So when we got to college, we had all these amazing tools and opportunities our parents had only dreamed of, so theoretically life should have been a lot easier. The problem is, we live in a very different world than what our parents grew up in. The “success path” that their generation followed can’t hold now – for example, of the friends I graduated from college with, I was the only one who had a “career job” within three months of graduating. And even when you do get a “career job,” the likelihood of staying with one company for decades is slim, so with every new job change you’re spending a lot of time just getting your bearings. Talent alone isn’t going to get you as far now as it did twenty years ago – a lot of it is about hard work, networking, and pure luck. For a lot of us, that means there’s not as much time to devote to those extra things that we want to do, like backpacking Europe or writing bestsellers or learning new languages or inspiring enough people to warrant being put on a magazine cover. Those things get put on the back burner, and the next thing you know you’re waking up at thirty years old and wondering what the hell happened to all the things you wanted to do with your life. That’s why this past year was so important; it served as a wake-up call that there’s still time to be fearless and amazing, but only if you seize it now.
CF: How was this past year different?
JM: Well, again, I woke up last year on my thirtieth birthday with the same thoughts you just asked: I was supposed to be doing amazing things by this point, what the hell happened? On one hand, I could see I was moving forward – that particular morning was the last one where I woke up in our apartment, as we’d closed on our house a few weeks before and were in the process of moving in – but I wasn’t quite where I wanted to be and I wasn’t sure of how to articulate what I wanted so I could get there. The thing I had to remember was that everybody’s path is different; just because a lot of my friends had kids, or spent their time jetting to various countries, or worked their way up to the higher echelons of the corporate ladder, didn’t mean that’s what I needed to do. As the summer progressed, there were a series of events that took place both at work and in my personal life that sort of forced me to step outside of my comfort zone that helped me put a better framework about what I wanted to do. I had to take on responsibilities that deep down I knew I could handle, but knowing and believing are two very different things. So yeah, there was a lot of anxiety, but you can’t expect something to move forward and be successful if you hide in the shadows and pray someone else takes over because you’re too afraid to try.
CF: So it got better, I take it?
JM: Oh, yeah, definitely. I’ve found that the vast majority of my anxieties about things, whether it’s an event or when we started RCM On Tap or the reaction to an article or whatever, the anxiety is mostly in the anticipation of the event. Once I’m actually in the situation, I’m usually just fine. The other thing was something one of the panelists said in a women’s leadership event we hosted at the campus: “Let others say no, don’t say no for them.” What she meant was to go ahead and ask the questions and make the requests we need to, because you can’t win if you don’t try. If you don’t try, success can’t happen.
CF: What does success mean for you now?
JM: Generally speaking, for me, it’s never been about money or fame – as long as I’m reasonably comfortable, not worried about whether I have enough food or a place to stay, and am surrounded by people I care enough about to want to be around, that’s success for me. From a spiritual standpoint, success is about understanding and being comfortable with yourself and the place you’ve created in your world. It’s finding the balance between contentment and pushing forward to your next step. Once you have that, the world is yours.
And then when it comes to writing, success is when you get to the point where people use your own arguments or stories or words to make a point weeks, months, or years after you said or wrote it. It means something you did resonated with someone else, and really, isn’t that what writing is all about?
CF: Since this article is about your “levelling up,” let’s bring it back around to birthdays. What was the best birthday present you’ve ever received?
JM: The best birthday present I ever received… when I was a sophomore in college, for one of my course assignments I had to volunteer in a first-grade classroom for a few hours every Tuesday morning for the spring semester. I got to know some of the kids pretty well, and for the two weeks I missed when I was in England the teacher said they were heartbroken until my postcards started coming in, which made me feel good – it’s always nice to know someone notices when you’re not around.
Anyway, the week I came back fell a few days after my birthday, so this little girl in the class, Autumn, drew me a picture that featured a rainbow and a pot of gold. Since my birthday is two days after St. Patrick’s Day, I remember asking her if it was a pot of leprechaun’s gold since it was at the end of the rainbow. And I will never forget what she said: very offended that I would think it was for a leprechaun, this little seven-year-old tells me that while I was out she really liked the postcards that I sent the class and told her parents all about them. Later that night, she overheard her parents talking about how expensive college is and how difficult it was to earn scholarships to stay in school, so she got worried that I might not have enough money to finish. So, she told me, the pot of gold was to help pay for the rest of my college so when she grew up and went to college, I could be her teacher someday and show her how to be amazing, too.
I’ll admit, I got a little teary-eyed at that. It’s a very humbling experience when a small child puts that kind of faith in you.
So from that day onward, everywhere I lived, on the wall just above my writing desk is a framed child’s drawing of a rainbow and a pot of gold – a constant reminder to keep pushing forward, keep working hard, keep setting an example worth following. A reminder that no matter what happened in life, there were people who believed I could do amazing things. My overarching drive from that point on was just conduct myself in ways so as to be worthy of that faith.
CF: What are you reading right now?
JM: (laughs) Ah…strangely, one of the books I’m reading right now is the same book I read the last time we had this conversation…
CF: …
JM: No, I finished it! I’m re-reading The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. I’m also finishing Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and the Encyclopedia of Ghosts by Daniel Cohen. I am so far behind in my reading – I only started the Ghost one the other day, and I haven’t had a chance to start the stack I got for Christmas. But I did manage a couple days ago to catch up on my back issues of mental_floss. It’s been a busy couple of months.
CF: Any parting words for your readers?
JM: There was a great quote I put up for my students a few weeks ago: “In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take.” And it’s true. If you try something and it doesn’t work out, at least you know you tried. Opportunity was seized even if it didn’t work out the way you expected. But if you never took the chance at all, think of all the wonderful stories you miss out on!
The other thing, and this kind of goes along with my last statement, is always trust your instincts. If something doesn’t feel right, there’s a reason for it. But on the flip, if something seems really crazy but everything in your being is telling you to take the chance, well, there’s a reason for that, too. Trust it. It might require a lot of work, but there’s a reason you’re being pulled in that direction.
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