One of my clients works for a big, fancy firm. It’s the kind of firm that people who went to Harvard go to if they want even more Harvard in their life.
This particular client has dreams besides being one of a thousand employees of a highly branded business, but he is not sure whether he will pursue those dreams. Setting off for the unknown involves risks and the benefits are uncertain.
Recently, he pondered aloud to me, “I wonder if the reason you’ve made so many career transitions is that you’re gay. I mean that in a good way. One of my siblings came out the closet recently and then completely changed her career. Once she made that big break from convention, other breakthroughs were possible.””
I nodded sagely, as I sometimes do. “You’re right,” I said. “Career change is probably easier if you are gay. A big part of coming out is recognizing that you are not going to get acceptance and approval from everyone, including in many instances your own family. So you develop a basic undertanding that what you truly want and need may be quite different from the world’s expectations of you. If you naturally expect a certain amount of rejection and befuddlement from the world, they don’t fase you as much when they happen.”
“In addition, coming out is a process of sorting out your adult self, and understanding how that’s different from the childhood image of what you thought you were going to be. When I was twelve years old, I thought that success would involve my becoming a lawyer, getting married and having kids, and being elected to the U.S. Senate. When I realized that some of those things were not going to happen in the way I imagined, it freed me to envision how all the other aspects might be different too. Accepting that you can’t be like everyone, and may not even have the same options, can be very freeing.”
“Conversely,” I added, “if you fit in too easily, you may never explore who you really are beneath the acceptable exterior.”
My client nodded, somewhat sadly, silently reflecting on the ways that he is like many others in the particular demimonde of affluent professional New York—married, white, earning a good salary, working for the well-branded company. And therefore, somewhat trapped by expectations.
“But don’t worry,” I assured him. “You can be gay on the inside.”
“Really?” he said brightly. “That makes me feel much better about everything.”
Anyone can be gay on the inside. It just requires three things: (1) consider that you might be different from the way people think you are; (2) consider that you might be different from the way you think you are supposed to be; (3) be willing to accept that other people may disapprove of your choices, and realize that their approval doesn’t matter all that much anyway.
Get past those things, and you can start thinking about what you really need to be in order to be your true self.
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