surviving corporate as a creative
staying sane while working hard (part II)
Wake up, commute to work, send emails, feel foreign, commute home, gym, whatever time is left dedicated to creativity, bedtime, repeat. All I want is a life that feels like mine. All we need, as creatives, is unlimited play and enough financial momentum to keep the wheels turning. Which doesn’t mean no hard work - it means that hard work is commanded to us by ourselves. Out of love and curiosity, not external mandates. Of course, that’s the ideal way, which is rarely accessible.
It’s taken bitter honesty and oscillating between overworking and executive dysfunction to come to the conclusion that my dissatisfaction stems from a deeper place than a particular role, industry, salary, or schedule. A prerogative I used to live by, like any Gen Z’er would - don’t like this job? Get another. But, it seems, upon multiple industry shifts and landing somewhere I actually enjoy, there’s much more to it than the 7AM alarm, Microsoft, or endless circling back: it’s a fundamental one-sided animosity for an entity that dictates what I do and how I do it, demanding not time but a big piece of my individuality, agency, and the free space and flow I need to make anything at all. Accidentally fractured attention, intentionally fractured personality. The corny “here’s my 5-9 after my 9-5” videos only make it worse. With the background noise and optimization content oozing out of cubicles or home desks comes a profound understanding that I can never be satisfied unless I’m building and priming my life for how I wish to ultimately see it: woven around a sustainable practice of creating things for the sheer purpose of creating them. Not for profit or recognition, but for play and exploration.
In part I of surviving corporate as a creative, we talked about the frustration of splitting your time between a corporate job and your creative practice/side project - this time, I’d like to reframe overwhelm into compassion and excitement, refine the questions we need to be asking ourselves, as well as map out a realistic plan for the future. It’s a path to be carved rather than a ready-made scheme to adopt, so the instructions must be tailored to you, by you. I’m only here to gently suggest.
well, let’s talk about the elephant in the room
It would be strange to go on these creativity vs employment tangents without addressing the root cause that makes one send out resumes in vain or take on a demanding job in the first place: money. The inescapable need to make money. Those who already have financial stability, via family capital or otherwise, are more free-flowing in the pursuit of creative projects, while the rest of us are left to stand back and show gratitude for what we have. Here’s the thing: I fundamentally reject the idea that coming from a working class background makes the pursuit of what I love any less mine to claim. If anything, it should be mine more.