Career Survey, part 2

My teacher and mentor Chris Chomyn takes a career survey of former students for the benefit of his current students. He sent one to me and I spent a couple days answering the questions - it was a nice chance to step back and get some perspective on the past, present, and future.  I'll share a couple things that I cut out.

"What is your ultimate objective in the film industry? Are you there yet? How long will it take?"

I think I have a pretty good idea of where I’m going. I also haven’t a clue. I typically accomplish my reasonable goals and fail at my unreasonable goals. The trouble is that I often have difficulty distinguishing between the two. Or possibly I fail at my reasonable goals and succeed at my unreasonable goals. I’m not sure. Anyway, when I decide I want to do something in life, I find it helps to form a plan with the following qualities: Specific, measurable, realistic, and achievable on a fixed time-line. Basic business school 101 type stuff I know, but it helps me. Mostly it helps me be happy that I work in film.

I try to remain flexible about my plans. Typically by the time I’ve accomplished something I set out to do in life, the thing has taken double the time I thought it would and the results are something totally unanticipated. This is fine by me. I am quite sure that I found myself working in Vietnam well before I had a plan to do so. That’s okay. My skills are fair at best when it comes to discerning my initial reasons for wanting to do something. Fortunately I am quite adept at inventing them after the fact.

It’s more about the journey than the destination anyway and a plan keeps me moving. And, yes, I have a plan for stopping too. I’ve just got a few things to do first and I also have to figure out a way to bypass or eliminate the heart-attack component.

I have no idea why I wrote all this. Once I know, I'm certain I'll have a good explanation.