What's It Like to be an Artist in a Money Driven World?

It’s been quite some time since I’ve been around people who understood the artist’s need to create. In college, most of my friends were also artists. Whether they were painters, graphic designers, musicians, or fellow writers, they understood the drive all creatives feel to make things that are their own. They understood the feeling an artist gets when they’re creating; that pure love of what they are doing. That feeling that at that moment they are being the best person they could possibly be. For an artist, work isn’t really work (although that isn’t to say it’s always easy). We do it because we love it. Trust me, it certainly isn’t for the money.

For me being an artist isn’t easy. I don’t come from a family of artists. I come from a family of accountants and health care workers. I come from a family where the bottom line is, having a good job that supports yourself or your family is what is most important. I grew up in a religion that values careers of service such as ministry and health care as being the only valid options. I have a mother that is all about doing what’s practical not what you love, and if you love what is practical, then you are one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to muddle through life feeling like each day is chore. Well, despite all the messages around me growing up that told me being an artist was an invalid career option, I’m the daughter who loves what isn’t practical. So for me, being an artist has never been easy.

I think I was about 11 years old when I first decided I wanted to turn my love of reading into a career. I had never thought I could do any extraordinary before that moment. I figured, I like my entire family would end up being a teacher, nurse or physical therapist, like my parents (accounting was out of the question as I have never had much love for math.) When adults would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I never knew what to say. Each time I had a different answer, but the truth was that none of the careers I knew of appealed to me. So my 11 year old brain thought it had an identity crisis because it couldn’t come up with an answer the grown ups wanted to hear, such as nurse or doctor. Then one day my best friend made a suggestion that changed my life. “Let’s write a book together.” It was the first time any thought of doing something creative with my life had ever entered my mind. It was the first moment it had ever dawned on me that my over active imagination could be an asset to me. And so we began writing a book about two twin girls, based off of us of course only they were ACTUALLY sisters, who were heading west on the Oregon Trail. I think we wrote maybe a couple chapters before that story petered out. But I didn’t stop there. I started trying to write stories on my own, and that spark stayed with me forever. I just knew that one day I would be a published novelist.

To be honest it’s the only thing I’ve ever really wanted to do with my life. It’s the only career that I’ve ever felt passionate about, yet if you look at my life today, you’d never know that my goal was to be a writer. Why? Because the only indication that I’m a writer is that occasionally I’ll tell some “I’m a writer” or joke with my husband about “when I’m a famous writer.” But I don’t write. It’s been years since I’ve written anything other than the occasional blog post or short story for that one class I took two years ago to try to get myself out of my rut. In fact, in the almost 4 years since I graduated from college, my life has seemingly taken a complete 180 from my goals.

I think it all started for me in high school, when my practical mother couldn’t understand why her bookworm daughter wouldn’t give up the dream of being a writer and choose a practical major for college. In the end, she talked me into studying Journalism instead of English because in her words, it was similar and at least I’d have a chance of supporting myself with that degree. So five years later, I ended up with a degree in Communications with an emphasis in journalism. And I wasn’t entirely thrilled it.

I did enjoy my college experience. In fact, it’s probably one of the best times of my life. For the first time, I found myself surrounded by like-minded people who understood the need to create over the need to make money. Sure there were some who judged us saying that we’d never make enough money, but they didn’t understand. That wasn’t our goal. During college, I formed a fantastic group of friends that encouraged each other in their writing and other art forms. It was so supportive and wonderful. For a short time, I really believed that I could do it.

Then I graduated and found myself moving back home to my parents’ house because I couldn’t find a job. After 6 month of bumming around on friends couches and hanging out in coffee shops, I didn’t have any money and decided I would finally give in and accept my parents offer to move back home. That was when I kind of gave up on writing. I was pushed by parents to “get any job I could find” instead of holding out for something I actually wanted, after all I had to start paying on those pesky student loans. So first I was a cashier at Sam’s Club, then I ended up, of all places, in the medical field. Opportunity knocked, and I felt I didn’t have any other options. So, I abandoned my dreams for a steady paycheck and benefits.

Now I’m not saying that my post college life has been terrible, because it hasn’t. This was the time that I met my husband, and that was wonderful. But my post college career, has been less than fulfilling. It isn’t because it’s a bad job. It isn’t. It’s really quite a decent career and I don’t hate it. But, it isn’t fulfilling because it isn’t what I love. And ultimately, I’m an artist at heart and artist are the kind of people that need to be doing what they love in order to be truly happy and fulfilled. We are meant to create and when that creativity is stifled we become trapped and unhappy, even if to the outside world we have everything going for us. And at some point, I allowed my creativity to be stifled to the point where I just gave in and accepted the fact that this was now my life and I’d have to live in the drudgery forever…. Well, not quite.

I don’t think artist are ever the type of people to give up hope. If we were, then after the first rejection we’d give up all together, and trust me those famous writers, painters and musician we all know and love, they faced plenty of rejection on the road to success. So for me hope is never gone. Every once in a while I think, well maybe I’ll go back to school to get my second chance at what I love. Most recently, my glimmer of hope was when my husband got a job on the other side of the country and we were moving. For a short time, I thought it was my chance. I would have to now quit my job and would be free to pursue something I wanted. After all, I no longer had the motivation to work in a mundane career as I had had in the beginning. I didn’t necessarily need to support myself or maintain a full time job so that I could keep my health insurance. I had a husband with a good job and a health insurance plan. But my hope was squashed again, when my husband announced he wanted to buy our dream house not in five or ten years but as soon as possible and that meant that I would have to get a job as soon as possible. And of course, the only field in which I have any real experience was health care. So once again, I found myself pushed towards the practical job with a reliable paycheck in order to fulfill a material wish.

Whatever happened to my carefree artist mindset where money and material things didn’t matter? What happened to doing what I loved even if it meant my “home” was on the couch of whatever friend was willing to lodge me, and my stomping ground was the local coffee shop where I could only afford regular coffee because gourmet mixed drinks were far too expensive for an unemployed writer? How did I become this ordinary person whose big dream is now the big fancy house instead of doing what she loves? At what point did I decide that it wasn’t even worth trying to be a writer any more?

Well the truth is that I hope I haven’t given up trying to be a writer. I don’t know why I don’t write any more. Maybe I’m lazy after long days at work. Maybe I just don’t have time with everything else going on in my life. But I don’t think so. I think somewhere along the way, I started to believe them. I started to believe all the people who told me that writing wasn’t a viable career. That I should stick to something reliable like health care. I started to believe the consumer lie that says what we own is what defines us. But the truth is, I don’t want to believe that anymore. I don’t want to be defined by how nice is my house or car. I want to be defined as writer. I want people to define me by the excellence of my art. I want people to define me by the passion with which I live and write. I think that is what I miss the most about being a creative. I miss the passion. Not just the passion for one’s art, but also the passion for life. I don’t think I’ve been passionate about life for a while now. Life has become something I just do. Not something I particularly enjoy. And that’s the saddest part of my story. It’s not that I’ve seemingly given up on my dream. It’s not that I’ve settled for a job that doesn’t make me happy. It’s that I’ve seemingly lost my passion.

I know it’s a little late for New Year’s resolutions. And I’m not generally in the habit of making them anyway; as everyone knows they never last. So I’m not saying this is a resolution. But I would like to make a goal for myself. Not just for 2014 but for my life in general. My goal is to start doing what I love again. Just because my life has taken some turns that I didn’t want doesn’t mean I have to give up entirely. It just means I’m not there yet. I need to keep trekking. Maybe someday, I really will be able to be free of the day job and do what I love full time. But for now I need to put meaning, even just a little bit of meaning, back in to the phrase “I’m a writer.” I want to start writing every day again. I want to rediscover my passion for my art and for life. I want to finally finish that novel I’ve been “writing” for 4 years now. Maybe by 2015 I’ll really be able to say that I’ve finally finished a novel. Just maybe. Here’s hoping.