Happenstance

You know how there are these elusive things called Perfect Days? I think I just had one.

Had lunch with Albert Kim today, a former editor over at Entertainment Weekly, People, Details, ESPN, Sports Illustrated and GQ, knowing full well that, being a veteran of the magazine industry, he would be a straight-shooter about the market and the current state of the publishing world. And true to form, we jumped right into talking about the large number of magazines that have been folding over the past few years, or are on the brink of that same horrendous fate.

But if you want to pursue journalism and really have the drive to push past doubters, then you'll find a way to make it work, he said. The first step is moving to New York.

He didn't have to tell me twice. As much as it seems like a pipe dream to move to Manhattan (or heck, I'll take Jersey and then commute into the city), I'm really doing it. I'm saving up from this semester (thank you, employment at the DT), and am fanatically compiling lists of contacts for NYC for when I journey over there first during spring break and then over the summer and beyond.

I'm really doing it.

I had been wavering on the line between practicality and whimsicality (fitting name for a blog, don't you think? har har), since such a move would mean throwing all of my faith into the fact that this was really a step in the right direction and not just an unrealistic distraction. But after talking to Albert, it seems as though it would be crazy for me not to take that risk.

For the majority of my life, I've always felt as though I were a victim of happenstance. Falling into things by what I judged to be pure luck. Right place, right time. Admission into Whitney (for what it was worth back then) - luck. Leadership roles in high school? Luck. Getting into Annenberg? Luck. Finding like-minded, passionate people? Coincidence. Daily Trojan? Bamboo Offshoot? Mentoring? Being mentored? Internships? Luck, luck, luck, luck and luck.

Connections? Pure luck.

Now it's Chance that beckons louder than its sister Luck. I'm taking a chance by going to NYC, sure, but if not now then when? If everything in my life truly has been happenstance, and everything really does happen for a reason (which I truly believe), then all signs point me east. And it would be rude and completely wrong of me not to follow said signs.

Today was a perfect day not just because Albert sent a lot of great contacts my way, or because he actually conceded that my pet project, my magazine's mission statement, was a viable one. Today was a perfect day just because Albert affirmed for me that great success stems from great risks, and that the only thing standing in the way of me and New York was...me.

So I stepped aside and let myself pass through into the sun.

It stopped raining today.