Education Quote by Jim McKay

There is a quiet punch to the phrase "finally gotten to a point": it frames success not as a breakthrough but as a delayed receipt, a check that took eight years to clear. McKay is talking about gratitude, but the line also reads like a small indictment of an industry (and a culture) that romanticizes perseverance while keeping the actual rewards on layaway. The emphasis isn’t on fame, craft, or artistic destiny. It’s on being paid. That choice is almost radical in its plainness, especially coming from a journalist, a profession steeped in the myth that devotion should be its own compensation.

The specific intent is modest: to mark a milestone and resist entitlement. But the subtext is sharper. "Being paid to make films" suggests the work was already happening - unpaid, underpaid, or done on the margins - and that legitimacy arrives through money, not applause. McKay’s gratitude becomes a kind of survival strategy: a way to stay psychologically solvent after years of uncertainty, rejection, or gig-to-gig improvisation.

Context matters in the timeline. Eight years is long enough to test whether "following your passion" is a calling or a con. By refusing the language of triumph, McKay lands on something more culturally accurate: most creative careers aren’t ladders, they’re endurance sports. The line works because it’s both thankful and unsentimental - a candid acknowledgment that in the real world, artistry doesn’t pay rent until it does.