I’m just back from a week in Italy. Going to Italy always puts me in a strange mood; like meeting an old lover, memories of all the good and bad moments in the relationship resurface. And together with the memories of what happened, I start imagining alternative scenarios and how my life could have unfolded, had I been raised in different country.
One particular event came back to me this time, vividly and with details I had not remembered in a long time. Many years ago, I wanted to become a journalist. I’ve always loved writing and at some point I thought that journalism would be a good career for me. One thing only held me back: the unsettling suspicion that I wasn’t “good enough.” I don’t remember receiving impressing praises for my writing. Not enough, at least, to make me feel I would be a good writer.
Partly, it was because in my high school there were many sons and daughters of the Italian intelligentsia. I remember looking in awe at the infinite bookshelves in my friends’ houses, full of novels and books of all kinds. My father was an engineer, not an intellectual. My parents had a very small collections of books and most of them were science books. The most impressive display in our bookshelf was the 12-volume Encyclopedia of Sciences and Technology.
When I finished high school, I had more pressing issues to deal with than my conflictual relationship with writing. I needed to move away from the unhealthy family environment and to find some space to breath. After an eventful and almost fatal two-year break studying agriculture in Pisa, I started thinking about a writing career again .
I volunteer to work at the Press Office of a large political event that was held in Pisa that year. After that, I worked for free at a leftist newspaper in Rome. It was one of the most amazing periods of my life. I loved the newspaper life. It was a tiny newspaper, and we basically did everything ourselves, from picking the news to writing them, choosing photos, and designing pages. It lasted a couple of months. The newspaper closed, and I found myself once again jobless in Rome.
After the high of working in the newspaper, it was a very depressing period. I tried to use my tiny work experience to find another position in a newspaper. I was willing to work for free, but I could not find a job, not even at those conditions. And, in truth, I needed to be paid. Not only because I needed economic independence, but also because the only career path to become a journalist at that time was a paid internship in a newspaper. To become a journalist one needed to pass the professional exam; to take the exam, one had to demonstrate to have written and to have been paid for a certain number of published articles.
In Italy, most opportunities are born out of recommendations. You know somebody, and this person introduces you to somebody else, and at the end you get an offer or an opportunity. Don’t confuse this with networking: it’s not an egalitarian economy of favors, but rather a sophisticated form of begging the powerful. At the end, the practice of “favoritismo,” as Italians call it, leaves a bitter taste in your mouth: the position you achieve has nothing to do with your merit and everything to do with the magnanimity of your sponsor.
One of my closest friends’ father was a journalist, a very important one. When my small newspaper closed, I went to him with a collection of the articles I had written neatly organized in a yellow envelope and asked for advice. I can still see the two of us talking. We were sitting one in front of each other at the dining table, the yellow envelope between us: “Do you think I am good enough to become a journalist?” I asked. He was very nice. He said it was a hard profession and tried to understand if I had the drive and the passion to succeed. Did I have a passion for news?
When he asked me if I had passion, I felt all my doubts creeping in; maybe I didn’t have what was needed to succeed or at least to be taken seriously, after all.
What I really wanted from him was a reassurance that all was OK, that I could do it, that I would not fail. He didn’t do it, and I started doubting myself.
What I realize now it’s that it didn’t occur to me at the time to ask for help. I asked him for permission. I didn’t take the risk to believe in myself. I didn’t take the responsibility for the passion and the need that I had in me. The fear of failing was bigger than the ambition to succeed. All I wanted was to find somebody who would give me permission to be daring.
It’s not that I didn’t try. I went to a couple of newspapers, I talked to people, I asked politely for an opportunity. I tried, but I didn’t fight. I thought it would happen if I really deserved it. I didn’t.
I suspect that the memory of these events are coming back because I am reading Anne Fels’ Necessary Dreams. Fels talks about women’s conflictual relationship with their ambition and their need for recognition. She deconstructs piece by piece the myth of women’s difference as an essential, fundamental constituent of women’s identity and shows how much cultural conditioning there is in it. And how limiting women’s identity to this difference becomes a cage that constrains our ability to give ourselves what we need.
I think about my current situation, all the discomfort and pain I am going through now in my job, and I see the same mechanism in operation. I passionately and loudly ask for permission and reassurance rather than demanding recognition for what I have done and opportunities to do what I love. By now, I should know better.
What if I stop asking if I am good enough and start focusing my energy in making my dreams reality? What if I give myself permission to dare and to fight, if necessary, for what I want?
It’s not about becoming less empathic or losing sight of our interconnectedness. It’s not about starting to treat other people badly or just as an accessory to my ambition. It’s about taking responsibility for my skills, wants, and needs; taking the risk to do what I really want. Even if nobody gives me permission.
December 4, 2005
It is scary to take that risk you talk about Antonella. Even when you’re involved in a job that is painful and uncomfortable. So many of us stay because of the fear of the risk to just go after what we really want. I can only hope you work it out for yourself as best you can. The right time might not be now. Sometimes the picture becomes very clear, and the circumstances become available. I wish you luck and strength to make the right decisions for your happiness. This was a lovely piece.
December 5, 2005
This for writing this. I feel every word.
Also, congrats on the new logo for your blog. It’s looking great.
December 6, 2005
A great secret revealed… now we know why you are such a wonderful writer!
I enjoyed reading about the past of the ever-mysterious Antonella! Looking forward to reading the auto-biography next 🙂
December 7, 2005
Here from the Carnival…thanks for writing this. You’re cleared up a few of my own mysteries. Off to get that book!
December 7, 2005
This post is featured in the Carnival of Feminists at
The fourth Carnival of Feminists
December 9, 2005
I think that “Necessary Dreams” is a very smart book. Anna Fels does a great job of using contemporary psychoanalytic theory as a lens for understanding women and work and ambition. As a shrink, as a working woman, as a mother, as a reader… I give it 5 stars.
Thanks for reminding me to look at it again.
December 11, 2005
cara Ciccia,
ho letto il tuo post. Ci lavorerò su per capire bene cosa c’è scritto. VOlevo solo dirti questo. Nel mio caso il permesso a seguire la mia ambizione, il mio permesso ad accendere la passione e seguire con determinazione, intelligenza, dedizione una missione, è dato dalla convinzione che ho che quella missione meriti questo sforzo. DAlla convinzione che dentro quella missione io sarò libera di esprimere le miei caratteristiche peculiari per il bene del prossimo, dentro un progetto che è vivo, che partecipa del presente e vada verso il futuro, insieme ad altri, in un progetto collettivo coerente e sincero. In un progetto insomma che abbia un senso e che mi proietti dentro al mondo, lì dove si costruisce il senso. Piano piano con il coach ho capito questo: quello che mi era mancato, in tutti questi anni era stata la convinzione di avere tra le mani la giusta occasione, il campo di attivitĂ che mi era proprio e la spregiudicatezza di andarmelo a cercare, senza precludermi niente. Oggi, anzi giĂ da ieri, ho cominciato a pensare che il mio discendere alle origini di ogni cosa per perdermici dentro era una “tentazione” da assecondare, e non un vizio. Mi piace studiare gli archetipi? Mi piace studiare le religioni, le costruzioni che incatenano esperienze insopprimibili, capacitĂ di creare racconti e le convinzioni che mettiamo alla base del nostro agire? Studierò le religioni. E le studiero perchĂ© è lì l’intreccio tra me e la realtĂ e lì la necessitĂ del mio contributo al mondo.
Per me, essere una donna, in relazione a questo problema ha voluto dire sentire maggiormente la necessitĂ di fare solo se la cosa aveva un senso, per me e per il mondo…
Baci, ti telefono
December 11, 2005
It’s as if I were reading the thoughts in my own head.
During the critical time of choosing a major in college, I went with “safe” instead of what I really wanted; out of fear that I couldn’t do what I wanted and survive financially.
Now, fourteen years later, I’m still paying for my choice- in regret and loathing.
I hope you can attain what you want.
December 22, 2005
[…] And while we’re on the theme of pieces with which I uncomfortably identify, here’s Antonella Pavese on ambition: When he asked me if I had passion, I felt all my doubts creeping in; maybe I didn’t have what was needed to succeed or at least to be taken seriously, after all. […]
December 27, 2005
Fantastic post. Thank you.
December 30, 2005
“What I really wanted from him was a reassurance that all was OK, that I could do it, that I would not fail. He didn’t do it, and I started doubting myself.
What I realize now it’s that it didn’t occur to me at the time to ask for help. I asked him for permission. I didn’t take the risk to believe in myself. I didn’t take the responsibility for the passion and the need that I had in me. The fear of failing was bigger than the ambition to succeed. All I wanted was to find somebody who would give me permission to be daring.”
I’m in that situation at the moment with a different career.
December 30, 2005
Do you think it’s a female trait?
December 30, 2005
I guess not.
It’s a pattern by now. I read something about women and business, or women and life, or women and technology, and I think: “That’s me! It must be because I am a woman…” So I write a post about it.
And promptly a few men write to me or stop me in the hallway at work and say: “I feel exactly the same.”
So no, women don’t seem to have the monopoly on uneasiness, discomfort, and low visibility. We are not the only ones to feel out of place or frustrated.
These are just symptoms of discomfort. They express a mismatch between expectations and reality; between the way we think is “right” to behave and what it takes to reach our goals; a clash of cultures, which can be seen often in women but it’s by no mean a “female trait”.
January 3, 2006
I really like what you guys wrote but in a way I’m confused because I’m 15 and I already know that for sure I wanna become a journalist or atleast a writer. I’ve been writing a lot of stories about things that I feel or see around me. I’m just wondering ” what does it take to be a writer or journalist. I hope that one of you will e-mail me back and help me figure it out.
February 7, 2006
[…] Click here to read Antonella Pavese’s I used to have a dream… […]
June 14, 2007
This one makes sence “One’s first step in wisdom is to kuesstion everything – and one’s last is to come to terms with everything.”