Heaven is out of fashion, have you noticed? There aren’t many of us who still believe in the big pink jelly house in the sky. But here’s another giant myth that most of us still cling onto: the full-time, permanent job. Our parents began the indoctrination, insisting that our future happiness depended on the quality of the job we got at the end of our student life.
When I say the job we got, I mean the job we got given. The job someone else created and developed; the ready-made glittering package. All we needed to do was pass our exams, act like a grown up and dress smartly for the interview. With a good job our life would be complete, we would have the world at our feet. Then the dream was shattered for ever. All of a sudden, after widespread economic meltdown, the 9 to 5 job is as dead as a dodo.
Good riddance, I say. Jobs were for wimps. Jobs were for those with no imagination who expected to be told what to do and watch their bank accounts magically fill up every month. To get ahead nowadays you need to be a maverick, a self-starter: infinitely resourceful, full of talk, ready for anything. You’re on your own, but the freedom is priceless, life-enhancing, god-given.
To get work as a journalist, for example, you have to be a journalist. It’s not chicken and egg or Catch 22. Journalism is something you do and keep doing because you have to. It can’t be taught. It’s for those few who are prepared to get out there and sell themselves. And rejection won’t stop them, or make them think twice – they are too busy working on the next story. Some people think they could be journalists, others already are.
Chapter One Side Two 