1/14/08 When Is "Good" Good Enough?

This is not a post about unemployment, or my job hunt, or aptitude tests, or what I want to be when I grow up. I am sick to death of thinking of nothing but all of that for the past week, and if I'm sick of it, I know you are too. So, to recap...not a post about the job (or lack thereof).

Well, okay, maybe a little.

But only to set the stage.

My transition coordinator thinks that I should be a corporate blogger. He says there is a need for companies to have people write their blogs because, 1) they don't have time to do it themselves, and 2) they do it badly when they try. So he thinks that because I write this here blog, those "skills" (and I use the term lightly...very lightly) should translate over.

Problem solved. Never mind the man has never read a single word that I've written.

On the one hand, part of me thinks this is a compliment. I mean, this guy has no proof that I'm ANY good whatsoever, but he seems to think that I could at least squeak out a living doing it. On the other hand, this guy has no proof that I'm any good whatsoever, so who is he to decide that this would be anything other than unmitigated disaster?

So my question to you, dear readers, (and this is really the point of the entire post...not the job or even blogging in general) is how good do you have to be at something to make a living out of it?* How do you know what is a career and what should just remain a hobby? Because I have no official training as a writer. And other than a bazillion case studies for school and the mindless dribbling you see here, I have no experience. And while part of me would LOVE to get paid to blog all day (Hello? Who wouldn't?), part of me quakes at the idea of just not being good enough.

So what's the cutoff between selling everything you own and heading to Hollywood to follow your dreams, and being content to sing karaoke in your basement?


(*By the way, while I love the comments where you encourage me and tell me I'm wonderful and you love me, you really really love me, please don't see this post as an attempt to have you stroke my fragile ego. I'm asking on a more universal sense. How do any of us know that we're good enough to do anything? Of course, if you insist on a teeny bit of ego stroking, who am I to stop you?)