So how do you find your Thing?

Ahh, one of the quintessential existentialist questions. And one for which I don’t have a definitive answer.

Victoria Shmoria says it’s a process, not a destination, to find your Thing. And that you don’t get a spontaneous confetti party when you think you’ve found it! (I was not happy to read that, Victoria. Just so you know.)

But I know this: I am now 27, and I’ve had depression since I was about 13. At 15, I fell into a major depression that arguably culminated a year later in a suicide attempt (interestingly, just 9 days after I began taking the antidepressant Zoloft, which has been accused of spurring suicidal tendencies in users). So I wasn’t just blue. I necessitated copious amounts of antidepressants and therapy, which unfortunately didn’t even help much. I am fortunately stable now, although still on medication.

However, there was one single year during which I was able to do just fine – spectacularly, actually – without any pills despite tremendous stress. It was the year I wrote my thesis in college. I was in pure love with that thesis; with my carrel at the college library where I kept most of the books I was using in my research; with the courses I designed for myself during my last semester (French feminist theory, which I took with a friend and involved writing essays and meeting weekly with a professor in her office; and the philosophy of animal rights, for which I met alone with another professor in his office). I am a hardcore nerd and I love it. I reach academic journal articles for fun even today, philosophy books, critical theory, and so on.

And if that year I was able to get past all the crap in my head, all the misery, dismal self-esteem, co-dependency that led me to date emotionally selfish men for five years in a row, the emotional instability, and the crazy in general – I have to wonder whether the cure was doing something I was deeply in love with. And, thus, I wonder whether I would be happiest as an academic, spending my time reading, writing, and discussing intricate ideas, expanding the horizons of my mind at 100 mph (as much as you can expand them through academic learning). Is that, now that my depression is no longer severe, my ultimate cure?

But I want to affect concrete change in the world. I want to make it a better place for women and for non-human animals in particular because they are the most oppressed groups on Earth. And I’m not sure whether writing would be sufficient to accomplish this on my terms.

And, no, I don’t yet know how to get there, or how to reconcile my desire to write with my desire to help change the world.

Meanwhile, I continue to write.

Also, my website is too pink. I intend to fix this.

Recently, I’ve been helping a few job-seeking friends out by teaching them what I know about freelancing, getting started, cover letters, where to look for jobs, and tactics to make them appear professional to prospective employers (as opposed to clueless, which is often the norm at the very beginning).

I am particularly happy to help them because nobody was there to guide me when I first started, and I would like to spare others the limitations and frustration I experienced. Naturally, I would have been able to progress faster had I had a mentor or friend in the industry.

I first started applying to magazines for entry-level freelance work when I was 19. My mother, a change management consultant, helped me draft a résumé and simple cover letters, but I did not know anyone who was already writing or who even wanted to and would join me in my adventure.

For example, at first, I only applied to magazines that explicitly sought contributors. It had not even crossed my mind to apply to publications that weren’t explicitly seeking writers because I thought I wouldn’t have a chance, that they wouldn’t be interested in adding to their repertoire of writers and editors.

Then, after I transferred to New College of Florida in Sarasota and gained more writing and editing experience from working for local magazines and college newspapers, I became interested in feminist jurisprudence and animal law. The college’s savvy and sweet career counselor, Cathy, patiently answered all of my questions, taught me how to write efficient résumés and CVs, and hugged me after each consult. It worked.

But because I had been seeking employment in a completely different field, my knowledge became largely irrelevant when I decided to switch industries and delve deeper into freelance writing, editing, and translating.

Because I didn’t have a go-to buddy who shared my specific professional interests back then, I spent countless hours researching and compiling information on how to go about becoming a successful freelancer—not to mention where I could even find a decent source of job postings that applied to me.

What I would like to know is how other freelancers started out: how you learned the ropes (ack, cliché!); if you were mentored, and if so by whom and how; and what you’d advise and warn newbies about. Please feel free to share.