A creative freelancer's most dreaded question
Coming to terms with the fact that you don’t fit into a box is liberating and lonely all at once.
I quickly came to realize that I wasn’t made to do just one thing. Nor was I made to do something that already exists. The creator in me always wanted to build things in everything she did.
Although the world as we know it today is a lot more receptive to non-traditional career paths, it’s still adjusting. And as such, the out-of-the-box creators are still often underestimated. Until they’re making money of course…
I don’t know about you, but it still bothers me when people ask me “but what do you do, really?” As if the multitude of freelancing, entrepreneurial, and creative projects I do didn’t equate to “doing”.
I used to feel somewhat offended by this question, or worse, turn to self-doubt, asking myself if I was in fact doing enough. But really the question should be why is it that we still discredit creators in our society. The ones who walk the path less traveled on and take both a professional and social risk.
Creative entrepreneurial life only looks glamorous to society once people have made it and they are bringing home the big bucks. But the true cost of building your own project is a lot less glamorous until you get there.
If your job isn’t making you money, it’s really just a hobby
Money is important. Of course, it’s important. Our lives largely depend on it because we need it to eat, to have shelter, to travel, to have basic hygiene, etc. So naturally, when a conversation topic is about work, it’s inevitably also about money.
While assuring financial independence and security is important in life, it’s not the only thing that makes a job real.
I don’t see myself doing one job for the rest of my life; let alone one job at a time. My interests are spread across different fields that I believe can be tied together, so while I can, I will enjoy doing it all. The “all” currently includes the following:
PR-ing in a local well-being studio, managing instructors and clients, and managing wellbeing workshops
Creating and facilitating socio-emotional workshops for children and teens through creative arts and Yoga
Mentoring children and youth
Creating guided meditations for the education setting on YouTube
Creating digital products for other scattered creatives like me
Freelance & creative writing
Recording songs I wrote and composed
Teaching a senior’s Pilates class
While I cannot dedicate the same amount of time to all of these things all at once, I consider each and every one of them a job, irrespective of the money I am making from them.
No, writing is not a hobby. No, singing is no a hobby. No, YouTube isn’t a hobby.
Just because something isn’t paying off yet — or ever — doesn’t mean it isn’t a job. In fact, both the freelancer and entrepreneur (in whatever area they choose to work) are distinguished by their capacity to take financial risks.
Although their ideas for work may start through a hobby, they most certainly are not a hobby once those ideas are being elaborated and pursued. To call these jobs hobbies is to minimize someone’s efforts and skills.
Money cannot be the only marker of success, but it feels like it is when a hobby only becomes a real job once money is the product of the equation.
If your job has a non-traditional structure, it’s probably not that serious
This mentality is slowly shifting, but remnants of it still reside. When I describe all of my creative job pursuits to someone, they find them interesting, no doubt, but they seem to be searching for something more.
“Oh great, but what do you do, really?”
Interestingly, if I tell them I work in a school, they no longer ask this question. School is a structured institution — it is serious. No questions asked there.
But creating an ambitious educational startup around socio-emotional competencies? Less structure, more risk, more concerning questions asked.
The same thing goes for writing. ‘I am an author’ sounds serious enough — you are backed up by the editing and publishing institutions that launch your work. Sounds serious. But a freelance writer? Uffff… Good luck with that.
Patience is not a virtue, money is
It’s interesting how our language advocates for patience more than we actually do as a society:
“Good things come to those who wait”, “Patience is a virtue”, “Slow and steady wins the race”…
But somehow, if you have been working on a project for too long without making a substantial buck, all of those cute idiomatic expressions become frivolous.
The seriousness and worth of the job become questionable because jobs are supposed to make money, right? And no one likes to wait around for money. We love to hear success stories though, those are great. The ones like when Steve Jobs became an overnight billionaire.
Except Steve Jobs took two decades to build his Apple tree. And I am sure he was not getting praised for having such a serious job when he was taking all those creative and financial risks.
What I will keep doing, really
At the end of the day, new ideas take time. Finding a rhythm takes time. Getting lucky takes time. When we rush the process of entrepreneurs and freelancers by questioning their worth because they lack structure and financial stability, we are not doing them justice.
In fact, if we criticize them at first but then celebrate their genius when they are rich and famous, we are actually being hypocrites. We should be supporting people who work, full stop.
Hard work, effort, financial risk-taking, and also risking doing what makes sense to you should all be celebrated. Not questioned.
So what do I do, really? I really do whatever makes sense to me; whatever inspires me and can allow me to contribute to the world in some way.
What do you do?
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