It wasn’t that I didn’t want all of these other people I knew to be successful; it was that their success somehow indicated my defeat.

As an entertainment journalist working in a leading Hollywood trade, I am surrounded by people who have achieved exemplary levels of success—both professionally and financially.

I interview movie stars on a weekly basis, attend cocktail hours and lunches at luxury hotels where celebrities are handed awards as if they are going out of style, and cover film premieres where PR reps parade their haute couture-clad clients down the red carpet as if they are royalty en route to meet the queen. I’ve been to parties at the Chateau Marmont with acne-prone teenage starlets who live in multimillion dollar hideaways off Coldwater Canyon, and have drunk coffee with Oscar-winning cinematographers who travel the world making movies. I know screenwriters who have been nominated for Academy Awards and producers who will never have to work a desk job or worry about coming up with the cash to pay for their kid’s palate expander and braces. Read more “the fix”…