Purple Unicorn

Here’s today’s paradox: trying to accept who and where I am, while fretting that I’m not somewhere—or someone—else.

Like two cats in a bag, both impulses are strong and fighting.

I have created a nice freelance nest, with just enough work, income and spare time to write creatively. But when I peruse online job boards, I realize that I couldn't leave this nest if I wanted to.

In his column in yesterday’s New York Times, Tom Friedman wrote that today's employers are not interested in where prospective hires went to school or what they studied. They’re interested in the value they bring to a company, their entrepreneurial spirit, their ability to continuously reinvent themselves.

“Employers have unrealistic expectations,” according to Eleonora Sharef, 27, co-founder of HireArt, a company that screens job hunters for big companies. “They don’t want to train you, and they expect you to be overqualified. They are all looking for purple unicorns: the perfect match.”

It’s no longer enough to be a veteran and much-published writer/editor. I have to have a gazillion other skills, including technology and social media. I have to think in Twitter tweets. And I have to be 30 years younger.

A friend and former colleague recently said that the jobs we would easily have landed five or ten years ago are now going to people who have more of today’s skill set, are smarter, younger and willing to work for less.

On days when work grinds to a halt, when I can’t manage to put two words together or when our bank account dips into overdraft, it’s easy to let stories of whiz kids who have made it big lure me into a cauldron of self-loathing.

I have to remind myself that 30 years ago, my professional goal was not to be a whiz kid or a millionaire or a purple unicorn. It was to be a freelance writer. And, with the exception of a few detours along the way, I have stuck to my plan. That in itself is an achievement.