Now that Hollywood is dead, it’s time to pivot to marketing. Just kidding—A.I. took most of those jobs. Luckily, your unique skill set is the perfect match for the following professions:
Teacher
You’ve come so far in your career, and have the résumé to prove it. Sure, it’s a little dusty, and now there’s a budding, young actor with your exact same name, which kind of muddles your IMDb presence—but still. You’ve worked on exciting projects! It’s time to put all that experience to good use. And by that I mean convincing twentysomethings to ask their parents for money to take your Zoom class on pilot writing.
Novelist
The TV and moviemaking industries have become so anemic that we’ve been forced to look elsewhere for entertainment, and have collectively remembered I.P. Oops—I mean novels! Hooray. It’ll feel great to get back to your roots. You fell in love with novels to begin with, remember? You adored how fiction could transport you from your humdrum life into other worlds. Now it’s your turn—nay, your destiny—to create those worlds. Maybe you’ll come up with something about a guy named Paxton—that’s a pretty cool name—who slowly realizes that, while he’s been breaking stories in a TV writers’ room, the TV industry has been breaking him. Wow. Now get to the nearest coffee shop and pound out eighty thousand words so that a friend-of-a-friend literary agent can tell you to rewrite the whole thing with more gay hockey.
Eldercare
It’s time to move back home. Not because you need to, but because your parents need you to. No matter that they’re actually doing fine, enjoying their retirement, and that you honestly just kind of get in their way. It’s all about how you frame it. In fact, there will be a day when your dad asks you to help move a dresser, and you will do this with admirable overpriced-pilates-derived ease. Your contribution will be called “invaluable” by your pops. Invaluable! That’s even better than money. Which is fitting, because you have none.
