Something I’ve never really discussed before was the reality that almost all of us don’t have the luxury of dedicating a lot of time to fulfilling our creative passions. Most of us have to work for a living to sustain ourselves and that in of itself takes up the majority of our day during the week. In truth, I haven’t had to think about it for several years now. Since the beginning of covid, when remote work has become normalized, my time was split between being in the office and working from home. Working from home allowed for downtime to be used to work on creative projects in between work assignments. However, now that I’ve gotten a new job that requires me to be in the office 5 days a week, the time I have that I can dedicate towards my writing and my art is effectively halved and it’s something I’ve been reconciling with.
Back before I had published my first and second books (the precovid times), I had also been working in an office Monday to Friday so I’ve had a similar experience to this before. Back then, I did the majority of my writing before I went to work and during my lunch breaks with my coworkers. It took quite a while for me to publish my first and second book having written them this way and I had some concern realizing that my pace could be slowed once again, especially since I have my 4th book I’m writing, the manga I’m working on, and the art pieces I like to make. A bit of existential dread came over me as I realized if I want to accomplish all of these projects, it’s going to take me a long time.
But then another realization had occurred to me. My third book took just as long as my second book had and I had started writing that after working from home had become the norm during quarantine. Over the past week, I realized part of the issue was that I did not use my free time wisely, especially during my stint of unemployment. Part of the problem I understood was that when I had a lot of time not dedicated to anything, I didn’t feel the pressure or motivation to write or draw right away. In my mind, I always thought I could just do it later and continue watching YouTube or playing some game. In a weird way, having less time in the day made me more conscientious of how I use my time. Would I prefer to have more time to write and draw? Yes, absolutely! But I also recognize that I am not as disciplined as I once was and that’s something I need to rebuild now.
Being a creative person with a full time job outside of your field of interest is difficult. The majority of the day you’re working is dedicated to something you’re not passionate can make you exhausted by the end of the day and that can make things quite difficult. It’s very easy to just want to veg out after work and relax rather than throw yourself into another difficult task and, as much as I love writing and drawing, those can be very difficult tasks when the motivation and energy just isn’t there. Because of that, one of my main goals right now is to rebuild the discipline I once had that was eroded over the past five years.
I’m hoping I can achieve that disciplined focus once more, especially now that I have so many goals and projects I wish to accomplish. It is a challenge we all must face that I hope we all may rise to.
– Raphael
P.S: A good example of a challenge to overcome with discipline is how I meant to post this yesterday but forgot to set the timer to post at 8:00am
Raph's Cozy Musings 