I caught a few minutes of The Voice tonight. I haven't watched it since Christina Grimmie was killed. That was a bit of a perspective-setter about fame.

In this episode, Kelly Clarkson was having a moment. I assume from context clues that Alicia Keys has been nabbing all the hot young things to the extent it started to give Kelly a complex. She didn't even want to turn around for a fabulous voice because she said, "There's no way I will win," or something to that effect.

Oh, Kelly, I feel you.

This is not a love song.

Here's the thing: Any time you try something new, put yourself out there, no matter how high you've risen in your field or in your art, isn't there always an Alicia Keys? Isn't there always someone who intimidates you because they are amazing in their own skin, in their own art, and that confidence somehow feels threatening, as though there were a finite amount of wins in the universe?

Because there are not: A finite amount of wins.

Kelly Clarkson is a thousand million times more successful than I am, a thousand million times richer, more talented. In that moment, though, I wanted to grab her ears and look into her eyes and tell her to levelset, my friend, because you are all that and more and you need to have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up.

You. Are. All. That.

I know, right? Getting through a career is hard. It is so hard. You get knocked down, laid off, hired again, budget cut, high expectations, no expectations, no team, huge team, quarterly dividends, what did you say, again?

And then you start again.

Over and over and over. A fifty-year career is no longer a fifty-year career, it's ten careers, five years each. Constantly remaking yourself, retelling your story, resetting the chess piece on the board after life clears the coffee table.

And the only way out is through.

The only person who can pull you up and out is you.

Gone are the day of being told. Now are the days of telling, deciding, weighing, and doing.

It's a lot, my friends.

I've been talking to a young person trying to find his first job. It's awful, brutal, so hard. I get it. I remember. I got my first job coming off the recession that ended in the mid-nineties. Then I was working in an Internet start-up in 2000 when that bubble burst. And it's cute, because when I say the bubble burst to young people, they think I mean 2008. No, friend, that was the year after I sold my first house at a loss and went tens of thousands into debt. That year, I had a four-year-old and life got REALLY REAL because there was a little person in daycare that meant things to my career and my earning potential and my need to be available at home. I made some career-limiting choices to be present for the four-year-old, for the recession.

I don't regret those decisions, but that doesn't mean they didn't happen.

Up. And Down. And Up. It's okay, parents, to make decisions in your career for your kids and then later wish you hadn't needed to. That's human. And that's parenting. Learning to adult means weighing everyone's needs before you make a decision. And sometimes, it's not fun.

Young person, I said. I remember how hard it was to get a job at twenty-two. It's not that much easier at forty-four. The only way out is through.

And the only one who can save you is you.

Don't you give up, Kelly Clarkson.