There’s always a corner on the internet or a family member in your very own household proving toxic positivity exists, often seen in different versions and in varying degrees.
Lately, it’s been the same words on repeat: Be thankful you have work (even though you’re being paid less and required to be online more). Don’t count your hours (as if the work-life balance wasn’t already a problem pre-WFH setup).
By the time we’ve reached the fifth month of quarantine, I was exhausted. Work never seemed to end and there was this constant pressure to finish things on time despite the limited hours and resources.
Don’t get me wrong, I liked my job and the company I worked for. I was part of an incredible team that doubled as my trusty support system on days we have to pull off all-nighters and enjoy rare carefree weekends. I also know that I’ve been lucky to be employed by what others considered as their dream company.
But I just had this nagging feeling of wanting to escape and to disassociate from all my responsibilities. I did this by dedicating my time to a string of personal projects that allowed me to take on a different approach when it came to branding and writing. I found myself wishing these “projects” were what I was doing full time instead, and that became another turning point for 2020.
I was mostly distracted by the workload ahead of me, but when we were asked to take a month-long break, that’s when everything hit me all at once. I was nearing my work anniversary and that led me to question how far I’ve come. Did I improve in the past year? Does writing about beauty come more naturally to me now? Is anything I do even worth the time, sleepless nights, anxiety and effort? Do I feel good at the end of a work day?
The answers came frighteningly quick: No.
The Impostor Syndrome has decided to make my head its home. I then knew I was lacking in the role I was trying to fulfill. As much as I constantly tried to work outside of my job description, the main and most crucial part of what I needed done just wasn’t getting to the standard that I felt the company required of me, and that I largely expected from myself.
After a month of reflection, I already knew the next step. After all, resigning from a job has become a calculated move for me now (practically because I know how freelancing can become a dead beat). I’ve already gotten used to all these career moves by now. It’s just one of those millennial things—good byes came with ease because rarely do we allow ourselves to stay rooted in one place for too long. I’m part of a generation whose main goal is to pack in more experiences, titles, projects into our profiles.
Okay, let me get more real. I am aware I can’t continue writing this essay without first recognizing the privilege that I hold—one that allows me to scale career options, treat community service as a side project while the world faces so much uncertainty. I don’t have to worry about having mouths to feed, except when cravings hit and I have to get something for everyone, just because solo orders when we’re all working from home is plain rude.
Part of my list of realizations was this: Focus your loyalty to the vision you have of yourself, even if the things you want change along the way.
Constantly ask yourself where you plan to be headed was my second takeaway. I’m a person that often just goes with the flow, but I always take a pause to reevaluate where I’m at—how much have I grown from this role? Is the bulk of my work still something that excites me? Where am I lacking in my craft? What do I miss doing?
Being a copywriter for a year really allowed that distinction between what I personally liked from the things I enjoyed doing professionally. This is also the role where I felt my most creative, not only because the people are so visually-inspired and design-oriented, but because being in this company challenged my own standard and gave more insight on what creativity can actually be. It gave me that urge and longing to create things exclusively for myself, things I can freely call my own.
Copywriting also made me miss my own voice, saying things I want to without anyone policing if it’s weird or “brandish.”
Apart from that, I’ve also (finally) accepted that the things I always thought came natural to me are and can be qualified as strengths I can hone and play around with. Things like connecting pieces seamlessly, developing visual branding and producing content segments are always a fun challenge—but ones I like to formulate concepts and strategies for. These are new things to consider for my next job, I suppose.
There’s this graphic Sarita Walsh recently made which was inspired by stuff you can read off of vintage psychology books. It talks about the types of relationships—mainly dependent, independent and interdependent. Although it talked about couples, I saw its centralized message of dependency as a progression of my relationship with my career instead.
I want to go through all three. There was this phase of dependence, where I strapped my identity with what I did as a professional. This was the time I worked as an editorial assistant and lifestyle journalist straight from college, and the lines between what I liked doing and what I did for a living merged conveniently.
That stint was followed by two years of freelancing, where I realized just how unhealthy it was to not know who you are or feel like whatever you do doesn’t amount to anything when you’re not working. I’ve now made it a constant exercise to ask myself who I am outside of my job, and while I don’t have a straight answer yet, I feel it’s now easier to tell the difference. I attach my self-worth less to my level of productivity.
And then there’s independence, a stage where I think I’m coming from. It was good that I had finally learned to easily detach myself from my work, without ever losing that excitement of being able to accomplish the most important things for the day or being proud of the projects and products we come out with after some dedicated months.
But writing for a brand took away the privilege of being able to use my own voice and getting credit for what I did. There were no bylines here that tend to give me a free card to be more subjective, to say things the way I want to. While I wanted to deliver with the best of my abilities (I’m often inclined to pursue things with the level of standard I have set myself), everyday was a reminder that it wasn’t about me, what I thought or what I liked—that I wasn’t acting on my own vision, but instead I have these mental notes of branding guidelines someone else had set.
The last type of relationship is where I want to be—interdependence. I want to be in the middle ground where the personal and professional are both meaningful experiences in their own right. Separately and together, these should be aspects of my life that give me a sense of purpose of equal weight and importance. One should be able to elevate the other. While work and life should still have that distinction, it has to have its own semblance of dependence, feeling incomplete without the other.
I know what you’ve just read has been a mix of unsolicited advice, and you’re probably wondering, is it best to stay put, to take a step forward, or to move at a slower pace?
I don’t have the answer myself, and I’m finally done getting frustrated over this lack of decisiveness. But I do know one should always to take a moment so you can yourself ask where exactly do you want to be.
✺ Art by Sarita Walsh
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