Sarah Silverman tanked on Saturday Night Live after only one season.  I find it helps to say this out loud, several times in fact, and especially on days when you are having a particularly hard time squeezing those lemons for the proverbial thirst quencher that is lemonade.  If the gravity of that sentence doesn't sink in, try this one: Conan O'Brien lost the Tonight Show, his dream job. Go ahead. Out loud please.  You might annoy some patrons sitting around you in Starbucks, but just ignore their tongue *clicks* of distaste and the glow from their hipper-than-thou iPads.  Say it again. Add a "wow" or "holy crap" if it drives the point home. Hmm. Still nothing? Then how about: Betty White has no right being the popular comic octagenarian badass that she is.  Ok, this might earn you some hate mail on Facebook, but trust me, it is totally worth it.

Before going any further, let me say how much I adore and revere all three aforementioned comic icons.  Let me also say that those statements are point of fact, true as your Fruit of the Looms.  And let me finally say that these truisms are maybe some of the most powerful gifts that each individual can offer to us.  Recently (so recently I can still feel the wind burn) I was met with some unfortunate news relating to my state of unemployment.  That is to say that State of Unemployment, population me, remains unwilling to stamp my visa and approve my stint over the border into Gainfully Employedsville.  This came at the end of a very long job search and even longer and more grueling process being on the academic job market. For those of you in academia, you can relate.  For those of you outside the belly of the beast, let me sum up: On a good year, the academic market is ranked only slightly less tortorous than being water boarded while listening to Bob Goulet Sings the Hits of Led Zeppelin. Let's just say that Bob Goulet couldn't hold a candle to this year.  

Of course the ability to weather this kind of rejection and meet the general challenges that come with higher education is just another part of the professional field as a whole.  Toiling away in obscurity while pinning your hopes on each packet of materials that leaves your desk or inbox takes its toll.  The Zen-like calm of acceptance and embracing uncertainty goes out the window (along with a shoe and a mug full of coffee) when you feel that you've exhausted your options and yourself with, it feels like, little to show.  Then I found myself thumbing through Sarah Silverman's new book, The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee, and my eye went to the chapter "Live From Saturday Night, You're Fired!"

Silverman talks with fondness, wit, and intelligence about her brief stint as a writer and featured performer on one season of the show.  Like every other comic of her generation, Silverman dreamed of heading to SNL to take her place in comic history alongside legends like Bill Murray, Dana Carvy, and Gilda Radner.  But her tenure was anything but magical (Al Franken might even call it "deadly) and at the end of the season, they did not renew her contract.

 What was, Silverman admitted, a pretty big deal all the way around (both getting hired and fired by the show) at the time, boiled down to about five pages in a 200 page book.  Moreover, it hardly marked the end of Silverman's career. If anything, her experience on the show enabled her to grow as a comedienne, to become more savy about the comedy business, and to connect with some truly brilliant people that shaped her career.  

It also got me thinking about Conan O'Brien and what will go down in television history as one of the messiest broadcast divorces ever (including anything Trump, King, or Baldwin related).  As Conan has talked about candidly in many pre-media-black-out-by-NBC-aka "God's"-decree interviews, taking over The Tonight Show was his dream from infancy and a major goal that factored into many of his career choices.  The decision to give Leno back his favorite chew toy, also an historic comedy franchise, could have permanently destroyed Conan. Instead, he's risen above the personal and professional devastation to enjoy renewed adulation and success amongst his fans, and to revitalize his career on a new network. 

And what can we say about Betty White? As a child of the 80s, who didn't want to perch at the table across from Rose, Sophia, Dorothy, and Blanche on those late, Saturday nights enjoying a slice of decadent cheesecake? (No Boniva for these robust gals! They got their calcium the old fashioned way!) But that was a storied time in sitcom history.  These days, the roles for older performers, and specifically older women, are relegated to the eccentric or bitchy mother-in-law or the evil granny intent on altering a paternity test to keep the rightful heir from inheriting a fortune (Soap Operas, I'm talking to you).  Betty White could easily have gone quietly into that good sitcom night, living her remaining years hawking pet control alongside Bob Barker or doing regularity commercials with Jamie Lee Curtis.  Instead, she chose fun and interesting small roles in film and television that have propelled her back into the public eye as a beloved comic figure, new to a whole generation of viewers, and set to host Saturday Night Live this May.

Sarah Silverman tanked on Saturday Night Live after only one season; Conan O'Brien lost The Tonight Show, his dream job; Betty White should be a has been (paraphrasing there).  I say these things to myself out of love and respect for three people who are teaching me, right now during what feels like career implosion, that there is opportunity in everything, that one person's professional disaster or evaporation is that same person's chance to move in a new, more fulfilling direction, that staying true to yourself and what you believe will never steer you wrong, and nice girls and guys don't finish last, they just choose to run in a different race.