Would you give it all up for Happiness?

Question:

Would you give it all up for Happiness?

I have been raised my whole life loving art. I have also been raised with ideas of money and respect; therefore, those ideas got me to college just like mainstream society tells you. In order to make it in today??s world you have to have an education. Well I got my BA in Business Management and majored in graphic design.

I??m going on 5 years at a corporate white collar job and I??m not bad at it, it??s not art related in the least, and I??m not happy with it. I spend most of my days @ work day-dreaming of being able to pursue what I love & if I could that would be so much more worth it to me – money or none! Right now I just feel like a sheep that??s following everyone else??s ideas and not my own.

I??m used to money so it??s not an easy decision for me, but it is a very obvious one. Artists are always the ones to take a chance for the concept of happiness and I feel like staying at this job is making me less true to myself?

Will you know if you??re meant to be a Starving Artist?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I have been in the professional performing arts for over 25 years. In only three of those years have I been able to support myself solely IN the arts -- the rest of the time, I've worked a "day job."

At the start of those three years, I was happy as a clam. I had plenty of projects lined up, and I was immensely gratified. However, as time went on, I found myself enjoying the actual work less and less, because I had to constantly be hustling for projects. Also, I had started out with a small nest egg, but it gradually eroded down to nothing. After making a list of pros and cons, I decided to return to the day job thing.

I'm considered by colleagues to be quite talented, but I didn't have the drive to do something major like move to New York [very expensive, that]. Having established myself at four organizations, I'm content to do projects amongst those groups -- at 45, I have no desire to go somewhere and be the "new kid in town." It seems to have worked out for the best, because I have several longtime friends who are now out there doing the "gypsy" thing of travelling around to where the work is, and they all are growing very weary of it.

So for about four years now I've been back to my former regimen of working during the day Monday-Friday and doing arts projects at night and on the weekends. [This doesn't thrill my partner, but he understands it's important to me.] To this day, whenever somone asks me what I do, I don't say, "I'm an adminstrator at ______"; I tell them about my arts career, since I would never define myself by a desk job.

The only drawback, as I'm sure you gathered, is that I can sometimes have very little free time. To me it's worth it, though, because it really does give my life meaning, even though live theatre is temporary and doesn't "last" the way a painting does -- still, artistry is artistry, and if a painter sells something it's gone from his life but he still retains the experience and the memory of it. But all in all, I'd rather do my art with some sort of financial security than starve in some garret.

So since you're used to a regular income, my advice is to do what I've done. It may take you longer to finish a arts piece in whatever discipline you work in, but you'll appreciate the security. The trick is that while at the day job you simply have to make it your focus so you can continue doing an excellent job -- though you're essentially "using" your employer to subsidize your artistry, you nonetheless owe them your energy and expertise.

Oh, and I just remembered something -- if you would be content with slightly lower wages, you could use your admin skills and simply temp. [I worked as a temp for a total of about eight years.] That way, if you ever want to take time off to solely do the arts, you can do so. The trick is to really, really impress the people at your assignments so they'll report very favorably back to the temp company -- the higher your valuation at the temp company, the more they'll be willing to let you come and go.