Or What happens when the dam is not holding us back. OR Do what you Love, Love what you do.
Being indecisive is a symptom of creative procrastination, you know.
Notice I said "Public Service Announcement" all in capitals there, in manner of something VERY IMPORTANT. I like to grab attention with a punchy opener, I do.
I have been thinking long and hard, ever since I last posted here, in fact. I have been thinking about working and the big pay off. Sorry, that should read "The Big Payoff", possibly even "The Big Payoff!!" Typically, I have been mulling over this principle, in the intervening weeks and months and wondering why it is I cannot seem to focus on anything creative. I have not unpacked my sewing machine since I moved the first time (I have moved twice) and my camera was, quite literally accumulating dust before my very eyes. Picking it up to shoot a (predictably poor) self portrait felt like there was an alien in my hand. I felt like a parent who had skipped pregnancy, childbirth and was plopped right into the thorny business of potty training without any warning. Like an athlete about to run the 1500m who's sum total of training had previously been a 100yd dash to the corner shop. Unprepared, clumsy, inadequate.
I didn't initially notice this in creative decline happening, as we the VERY BUSY are predisposed not to do. I just... well, I didn't feel like I had the time. The inclination was sort of there, I mean, I'd thought about getting those things out again, and maybe dabbling a little. I'd waffle a bit about how precious my free time was, then do precisely nothing with it. Writing articles in the evening has become the norm for me, I review Music, tacking it onto the end of my working day with ease. This is a part of my creative life that I wouldn't change, but the rest of it? Where did it go and, more importantly- how can I get it back again?
I suppose in order to regain the things we feel we lost, we need to first address what replaced it in the first place. I have been guilty of taking a job purely for security and not based upon happiness, creative input or a good work/life balance. The three things I rate so highly in terms of an ultimate payoff of happiness and well being, were shelved because I didn't have the guts to admit that what I was doing ( slogging my guts out to achieve something I didn't believe in in the first place) was preventing me from a happy, fulfilled and balanced life.
Of course, it is not easy to achieve balance in life, we all try and most of us fail. The proverbial see-saw on which we balance our needs versus our wants is forever precariously in motion, to expect it not to be would be unrealistic. I have known for quite a while now that having my see-saw at such an alarmingly steep incline is neither right, nor healthy. Want to shoot some photos tomorrow? "Can't, I'm working" Fancy sewing something cute to wear this Autumn? "Can't, I'm so tired.. from working", "Hey, incredibly attractive guy I just met, let's go for a drink. Which I'm warning you now, I won't enjoy because my stomach is tying itself in knots about having to work tomorrow". I have been duped into thinking that it is OK for a job to define me and define me completely. It is not who I am, working until I am so brain dead I cannot speak is not me. Of course we need to work to live, our jobs should support our free choices and lifestyles and my job was swallowing all of that up. It is a real danger that putting ourselves in that situation (and we do put ourselves in that situation) can make us feel that all jobs are the same, that we will never be happy unless we are self employed, calling the shots and dictating our own hours. I certainly have felt that way in recent months, it has made me overlook the fact that (gasp) I actually LIKE working with others! that yes! it IS possible to have a job which suits you AND potentially even supports the life you want, heck! some of those things might even overlap!!
And slowly, it dawns. You can get paid for doing what you love, and if you don't love it then at least do something you like enough that allows you at least some time to devote those precious moments to the things you do. Because while you are working, adding value to something you may not believe in, let me tell you other people are waking up thinking "God, I love what I do".
I know I will be accused of romanticising employment, with Jobs so scarce and people being made redundant, the cost of living means we simply cant afford to run off and buy a potters wheel. We all have to do things we don't like, with people we may not gel with and that is life. I'm just saying one thing that I wish people had told me sooner; you have options, there is always something else you can be doing.
This week has taught me that if you are doing something that subtracts from who you are and what you love. You very simply, shouldn't do it. I think Kele Okereke said it best "If your right hand is causing you pain, cut it off, cut it off". I'm not saying we should all become sans limbs and live off the state but in very basic terms this represents the very thing I truly believe; If you are doing something you don't want to do. Don't do it. Don't do it a second longer than you have to.
And so I find myself at a crossroads, my skills can take me in any number of directions, and typically the better paid of them will take me further from what I love. My future is uncertain but even after coming to the above realisation I still waver about my choices. A job, an occupation, is essentially a contractual agreement to provide a specified service for an agreed time frame to another party. At no point does it say that you have to shelve your dreams and waive your free time into the mix. When you interviewed for the position did they tell you that you would cry with dread on the journey to and from work? Did they mention you would often vomit with the presure? No they did not. They didn't because that is an unrealistic expectation to put on somebody. Nobody gets paid enough to take that on.
I have other options which crucially involve a hearty dollop of writing, sewing and photography and I may be initially poorer for it but I am pretty sure my blood pressure and niggling acid reflux will abate as a direct result. A wise friend who I hold dear for his ability to sort the wheat from the chaff and who is high in my esteem for blazing his own trail simply said to me "pick one" And it really was as simple as that. Once you pick the route that's right for you, once you acknowledge that the road you have chosen might not be the smoothest or safest, it all becomes so much easier. I have pretty much decided that the job I don't yet have is the one for me, before I have it. I don't even know if I will get it but the very act of being in a position to go for it is liberating. I have learnt that wanting to work for people who value you and what you can offer them is not unrealistic. It's a normal expectation. There is no shame in walking away from something that makes you unhappy if it allows you to become the person suitable for a job that will allow you to be happy.
If anyone has any freelance writing work/patterns/tutorials/styling then obviously, I'm your girl :D
No really, I'm serious.
Being indecisive is a symptom of creative procrastination, you know.
Notice I said "Public Service Announcement" all in capitals there, in manner of something VERY IMPORTANT. I like to grab attention with a punchy opener, I do.
I have been thinking long and hard, ever since I last posted here, in fact. I have been thinking about working and the big pay off. Sorry, that should read "The Big Payoff", possibly even "The Big Payoff!!" Typically, I have been mulling over this principle, in the intervening weeks and months and wondering why it is I cannot seem to focus on anything creative. I have not unpacked my sewing machine since I moved the first time (I have moved twice) and my camera was, quite literally accumulating dust before my very eyes. Picking it up to shoot a (predictably poor) self portrait felt like there was an alien in my hand. I felt like a parent who had skipped pregnancy, childbirth and was plopped right into the thorny business of potty training without any warning. Like an athlete about to run the 1500m who's sum total of training had previously been a 100yd dash to the corner shop. Unprepared, clumsy, inadequate.
I didn't initially notice this in creative decline happening, as we the VERY BUSY are predisposed not to do. I just... well, I didn't feel like I had the time. The inclination was sort of there, I mean, I'd thought about getting those things out again, and maybe dabbling a little. I'd waffle a bit about how precious my free time was, then do precisely nothing with it. Writing articles in the evening has become the norm for me, I review Music, tacking it onto the end of my working day with ease. This is a part of my creative life that I wouldn't change, but the rest of it? Where did it go and, more importantly- how can I get it back again?
I suppose in order to regain the things we feel we lost, we need to first address what replaced it in the first place. I have been guilty of taking a job purely for security and not based upon happiness, creative input or a good work/life balance. The three things I rate so highly in terms of an ultimate payoff of happiness and well being, were shelved because I didn't have the guts to admit that what I was doing ( slogging my guts out to achieve something I didn't believe in in the first place) was preventing me from a happy, fulfilled and balanced life.
Of course, it is not easy to achieve balance in life, we all try and most of us fail. The proverbial see-saw on which we balance our needs versus our wants is forever precariously in motion, to expect it not to be would be unrealistic. I have known for quite a while now that having my see-saw at such an alarmingly steep incline is neither right, nor healthy. Want to shoot some photos tomorrow? "Can't, I'm working" Fancy sewing something cute to wear this Autumn? "Can't, I'm so tired.. from working", "Hey, incredibly attractive guy I just met, let's go for a drink. Which I'm warning you now, I won't enjoy because my stomach is tying itself in knots about having to work tomorrow". I have been duped into thinking that it is OK for a job to define me and define me completely. It is not who I am, working until I am so brain dead I cannot speak is not me. Of course we need to work to live, our jobs should support our free choices and lifestyles and my job was swallowing all of that up. It is a real danger that putting ourselves in that situation (and we do put ourselves in that situation) can make us feel that all jobs are the same, that we will never be happy unless we are self employed, calling the shots and dictating our own hours. I certainly have felt that way in recent months, it has made me overlook the fact that (gasp) I actually LIKE working with others! that yes! it IS possible to have a job which suits you AND potentially even supports the life you want, heck! some of those things might even overlap!!
And slowly, it dawns. You can get paid for doing what you love, and if you don't love it then at least do something you like enough that allows you at least some time to devote those precious moments to the things you do. Because while you are working, adding value to something you may not believe in, let me tell you other people are waking up thinking "God, I love what I do".
I know I will be accused of romanticising employment, with Jobs so scarce and people being made redundant, the cost of living means we simply cant afford to run off and buy a potters wheel. We all have to do things we don't like, with people we may not gel with and that is life. I'm just saying one thing that I wish people had told me sooner; you have options, there is always something else you can be doing.
This week has taught me that if you are doing something that subtracts from who you are and what you love. You very simply, shouldn't do it. I think Kele Okereke said it best "If your right hand is causing you pain, cut it off, cut it off". I'm not saying we should all become sans limbs and live off the state but in very basic terms this represents the very thing I truly believe; If you are doing something you don't want to do. Don't do it. Don't do it a second longer than you have to.
And so I find myself at a crossroads, my skills can take me in any number of directions, and typically the better paid of them will take me further from what I love. My future is uncertain but even after coming to the above realisation I still waver about my choices. A job, an occupation, is essentially a contractual agreement to provide a specified service for an agreed time frame to another party. At no point does it say that you have to shelve your dreams and waive your free time into the mix. When you interviewed for the position did they tell you that you would cry with dread on the journey to and from work? Did they mention you would often vomit with the presure? No they did not. They didn't because that is an unrealistic expectation to put on somebody. Nobody gets paid enough to take that on.
I have other options which crucially involve a hearty dollop of writing, sewing and photography and I may be initially poorer for it but I am pretty sure my blood pressure and niggling acid reflux will abate as a direct result. A wise friend who I hold dear for his ability to sort the wheat from the chaff and who is high in my esteem for blazing his own trail simply said to me "pick one" And it really was as simple as that. Once you pick the route that's right for you, once you acknowledge that the road you have chosen might not be the smoothest or safest, it all becomes so much easier. I have pretty much decided that the job I don't yet have is the one for me, before I have it. I don't even know if I will get it but the very act of being in a position to go for it is liberating. I have learnt that wanting to work for people who value you and what you can offer them is not unrealistic. It's a normal expectation. There is no shame in walking away from something that makes you unhappy if it allows you to become the person suitable for a job that will allow you to be happy.
If anyone has any freelance writing work/patterns/tutorials/styling then obviously, I'm your girl :D
No really, I'm serious.
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