Youth is Not Always the Answer

I failed more than I won, but I won.

I went out walking with my sister last night after another failed attempt to write a newsletter. I was walking and observing all the parts of New York I have overlooked in the last few months. This summer, for whatever reason, has steamrolled right over me. There is always somewhere to go and something to do. I am failing to arrive to all of it. 

The hard part was I knew what I wanted to talk about. It was merely getting it out in a coherent way that didn’t work. Everything came out jumbled or confusing. Then I over-edited the whole thing and frequently started over. I wanted to talk about how much I despise the framed narrative of young success. Each newsletter I started was about everything that was not inspiring about overnight or instant success. Though every time I began all I could think about were the people I was inspired by—the people who did not have it all right away. 

When I hear stories of people who made it big quite young they never really have anything to say about it. Whereas when I think of Anthony Bourdain, who at 45 published his first book, had a lot to say about the life he lived before and after. He was honest in the mistakes that led him to the beginning of his very influential career. Every time I think of his life I am flooded with relief. I have time. His story and many others offer that relief. Not because struggle is good but because it happens. 

When those young 22-year-olds get up and talk about making it big there is an instant disconnect between their reality and mine. I remember being a punk-ass 22-year-old who thought life should be happening to me. Who now at 27 realizes if life just happened to her she’d have been an egotistical asshole. That’s what kills me the most, we get these lists of people under 30, and all I want to ask so many of them is “What do you know?!” It’s not everyone but there is an entitled bunch in the crowd and I just don’t find myself drawn to their story. 

I’m drawn to people who didn’t get it right away, who made some wrong turns, and who are honest. Who had to ask themselves if this was what they really wanted their lives to be. Who accepted that doing what they love for a few people was better than not doing it at all. Who redefined success many many times and did not define it the way we so often see.

Young success is a potent hope for many because we believe it will excuse us from struggle. Not only is that not true, but even if it were, those hardships and struggles people face when they take small steps toward their big dreams are often the very struggles that teach us to keep going. It is unfortunate we face these tests. The grueling and miserable times where we have two options, quitting or pushing through it. It’s not fun, it’s awkward and humiliating. Our refusal to talk about it, or for people to not acknowledge their unique circumstances that lead them to success, only perpetuates the idea that success is a steady incline when it’s an unpredictable rise and fall filled with wins and losses.

But maybe it’s more than just this idea that people won’t struggle. It’s often the modern American dream that distorts our reality. A fantasy that hard work leads to mass success 100% of the time as long as you put your mind to it. Often the most judgemental people are the ones who were handed their American dream on a silver platter and shame those who didn’t have the same opportunities. Or the people who rewrite their history to be filled with real struggles they never faced. Who preach about everyone having the same 24 hours to take on life. The pressure from society of a success timeline is meant to motivate when it just tells us we’re already too late. We continue to see proof of how inaccurate this is, yet we are flooded with the propaganda that weighs against us.

The very worst part of young success is that it seems to rid us of the benefits of failure. When an entire person’s success is built on never feeling that defeat, reaching any failure is career-ending. The mistakes we make as young people are often devastating but essential. It’s a disservice to promote a lifestyle that rids itself of these failures. Creating an unachievable portrait of what coming into oneself is supposed to look like. 

There is a certain period of time in your youth when failure is constant and you learn to handle it with grace. Not having that period of humility is a devastating pass on an important chapter of time whose lessons we take with us forever. Without mistakes, we’re really not learning anything at all. Our youth is meant for that period of learning. To dissect and break down what we believe to be true and rebuild it constantly. When people are not honest about what they went through, it negatively affects the people who follow in their footsteps.

Anthony Bourdain as I previously mentioned, is my favorite example because I think he appreciated and was grateful for his success and failures more than anyone I’ve ever read. He never forgot what he had to do to get there. Chris Pine with his negative 400 dollar bank account balance before landing the Princess Diaries, Nicola Coughlin moving home in her late 20s and battling depression in pursuit of her dreams, Phoebe Dynevor working as a terrible waitress wondering if she would have to get a real job soon. Jon Hamm not get his big break until he was 36 with Mad Men, Mike Mills coming out with his first movie when he was 39. Even with these examples, these people were by no means old, they just weren’t the conventional age or overnight success people often write home about. 

It is not even that these stories have to be full of terrible trauma, you don’t have to face every hardship to be inspiring. I enjoy the normal arc, the one that people don’t seem to care about because it lacks wow factor. I don’t enjoy that people struggle, but I am aware often that struggle is part of many people’s stories. Sharing those moments of hardship brings hope to the people who are now in the very same position.

What makes these people so inspiring is that they don’t give up. Their rise to success was a marathon, not a sprint. The hardships they faced were very real and very common. Their success was hard-earned in a long arc and you can tell by their gratitude and their awareness that they recognize it’s not always easy. What fails in the narrative of instant or overnight success is how unachievable it is in reality, but how it’s painted like all of us can achieve it if we just work a little harder. If we just do a little more. If we manifested before bed every night. It would be here, but it’s really our fault that it’s not. 

30 is not the end of the line and yet the Forbes 30 under 30 does paint a big finish line on the very last day of your 29th year of life. A silent and often annoying ticking clock presented to us before we even know what we want to do with our lives. Who’s conditions for success are often time-sensitive and encompass a decade of our lived where you're just doing your best to discover who you are. It would be nice if we could stop emphasizing these short arcs to success and applaud those who didn’t make it before 30. There is something so much more interesting in a story about perseverance, but maybe that’s just me. 

This point and these stories became so important to me these last few months because I was consumed in struggle. I lacked direction. I failed a million times. In no universe was I ever going to get Forbes 30 under 30 but it never felt more unachievable than this year. I don’t feel the desire to give up on everything because 30 is less than three years away. I am in a great big moment of not knowing where to go or what to do. I have enough knowledge to know that I have time. I know that these personal failings I have faced are in no way dictating the rest of my life. I know so because I spent my entire spring looking up Anthony Bourdain, and Harrison Ford, and Nicola Coughlin, and Mike Mills, and Sloane Crosley, and everyone I have ever felt connected to. My time is hardly up and I won’t let anyone make me feel bad about my small successes and failures.

Yes, I failed this spring. I failed to post on social media because it became overwhelming. Month after month I failed to get this newsletter out. I tried to restart From My Search Bar segments on Instagram and I got stage fright over and over. I applied to basically every job I saw and did NOT hear back. I was even rejected many times which is somehow better than never hearing anything. I was sick without insurance more than 5 times. I did not sell out of my zines at ALL. I clung to astrology TikToks for good news. I cried because I felt like I was failing as a photographer. I pivoted my career and then fell into a free fall which I am still navigating. I don’t know how to get where I want to go, and worst of all, I went on a morale-boosting walk and got hit by a bike the moment I stepped off the subway. I mean I failed big and small. 

But I won too. I got a freelance job making content for Le Puzz. A brand run by people who I really like. I met my idol, Stella Blackmon. Turns out we’re good friends. I took good photos. I made a giant vlog for YouTube. I came back to TikTok anit-vlogs after a period of rest. I got free Warby Parker glasses the day after my other glasses broke. I escaped Covid twice. I went to the beach. I saw my friends. I got a letter from the girl I babysit. I started going upstate and I agree with my sister,

Chloé in Newsletter

, this thing does look good on me. If this thing is a dream, don’t wake me. I taught a class at FIT and tried to be the teacher I needed at 18. I broke free of a career path I didn’t want to do anymore. I saw my parents. I even finished this newsletter, maybe a little late, but perhaps in some ways it’s right on time. I failed more than I won, but I won. 

I went on a walk with my sister last night and we were talking about a lot of things and I realized that this moment of struggle is over. The bulk of it is gone. It made me think of the height of my miserable spring. It was a night much like last night only I was crying and my sister told me it would never be this hard again because too many people were rooting for me. It would never be this hard again because I would never be 27 again. I would have other struggles later, but they would never be these struggles. It was comforting to be reminded of my temporary circumstances in a moment where they felt endless. Though my successes were small, I was happy to know they existed at all. This is not the success story anyone wants to hear, but maybe that’s the very reason I felt the need to tell it. We decided after I finished crying that Dreams by The Cranberries was our song of success this year. On my way to meet my sister last night, it was the only song I listened to. I had redefined success this spring, and it looked nothing like I had imagined, but it felt good nonetheless.