Learning to keep at least some of your creativity for yourself
Presumably, the ultimate accomplishment in life is getting to a place where you get paid to do the thing you enjoy doing the most. Nothing to complain about there, one would think. But as I find myself doing work I enjoy for people who appreciate it and who compensate me appropriately, I no longer have the same drive to work on personal projects, and that includes writing for myself. I now realize that so much of my creative output in the past was a side effect of being stifled creatively at work. The less fulfilled I felt at work, the more creative I became in my personal life. This only seems natural in hindsight.
Not only do I avoid most news these days, but the topics capturing my attention tend to be work-related more often than not, and so that has been where my efforts have been focused. I’m writing strategy positions and white papers, marketing copy, and culture missives. It’s creative, strategic, and altogether practical. It makes more sense to me than ranting about things I cannot change. Here are, in fact, issues I can have some control over, and with that I have the ability to make the world a slightly better place. I find this much more fulfilling than just arbitrarily ranting about things I have no agency over.
The one downside is that so much of my work ends up trapped in internal documents that only a handful of individuals will ever see, and even fewer will ever appreciate. The other downside is that it’s not something I’m doing for myself, but rather efforts I am committing to that will make other people money. I get paid, but only for my labor and not necessarily for the quality of my work. The only incentive for being accurate is to continue my employment. I do not share in the success I help to develop. On a purely practical level, I’m not creating art for my own pleasure, but whoring myself out for cash; someone has to pay the bills around here. It’s a good problem to have.
If this continues, I will have to force myself to pursue personal projects that stretch me in other ways, not because I feel stifled, but because growth requires a certain amount of struggle. No pain, no gain, as the gym rats say.
Like I said, a good problem to have.