When inspiration strikes, it just strikes, says the author, Kat George, who wrote a piece on Bustle about why creative minds can’t work a 9 to 5.
I was a victim of that.
I woke up every morning at 6 am to get ready for work at 9 and I leave work at 5. To be frank, the only thing that kept me at that job was my co-workers.
But the job itself? Monotonous. I have to be doing something all the time, that’s just me. So when I go to work and do nothing but scan papers, you’ll understand why I felt it wasn’t for me. Mind-stifling.
I was pretty much micromanaged from every corner. I’d sit at my desk, look at the computer screen and think ‘are all these other people okay with this? How can they do this for ten plus years?’.
I’ve had creative minds around me literally starve themselves because this ‘office job’ brought home the money.
But I couldn’t do it. I did last a year (a miracle in itself), but I couldn’t help that inspiration would literally slap me in the face at the office. So I wrote. I wrote whatever came to me. I wrote an entire novel in that office. I wrote short stories: from mild quick stories to erotica’s. From fantasies to science fiction, it had no end. It would happen whenever.
I literally couldn’t (I was prevented from) pulling out my notepad and writing. What else was I supposed to do? To be honest, I even came up with designs at the office. I believe I came up with my finale piece in my Summer Sizzle collection in that very office. Because while others were there trying to hold on to that job, honestly, I was pining to leave it.
I believe it was earlier in 2017 (while I was getting anxious about whether or not I was accepted in FIT), I’d already made up my mind. I wasn’t staying at that job a day over August. So it was either I got accepted into the school or I was changing jobs. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do the nine to five, and I couldn’t understand how people could do it.
It was driving me crazy. I’d spend so much time worrying, that several moments I went to my mother telling her that I wanted to quit. I never knew that my job would be that monotonous. I’d ask for work, but all that they had for me was scanning and filing. Literally.
And when they did have work, my mind was going at a hundred miles per hour with designs, short story pieces, illustrations, blog ideas, and everything else—besides work. And to be honest the only true reason why I got hired was because I was creative with my résumé. They were impressed with it—and they did warn me that the job would be boring.
So, I guess it was my bad.
However, I did think that I would be too preoccupied with various office tasks to even think about other things. I was wrong about that too. Imagine being given papers to sort—stacks of papers that you have to religiously scan in. How faithful would you be to that job, if every time you sit down, you’re tempted to draw? To tell a story?
Or, imagine, for a second, that sitting, staring at a screen for hours has become so draining a task, that in order to keep awake, mind you, to stay awake, you literally have to be eating food? Well, welcome to the life of a creative mind. Where chewing is more interesting than staring at a screen.
Or, when inspiration strikes whenever you open up a Word document? A thousand words come rushing to your mind. And you somehow must get them out. There, I tell you, that that is what my life looked like.
And, to be honest, I am a hard worker. I’m not a laid back or lazy person. I actually can do my work and I can do it well — if I have work to do.
This is why I wanted fashion school so badly. Hands on experience, connections, work, and projects that would preoccupy me, but breaks throughout and I get to work at my own pace. Because fashion, in all truth, is a strenuous job. But to me, its easier to fit in breaks and relaxation in a fast-paced job.
It’s easier to step back and take a seat when you have work to do than it is to live within the context of a rigid nine to five that dictates that you must sit at your desk at all times doing nothing.
If you’re creative. If you love to draw. If you love to write. If you love music. If you love any of that. If you’re always inspired. And if you are always on the go. Spare yourself the unending, ritualistic heartache and don’t work nine to five.
Unless that is, money is the only thing that inspires you.
PS. I do urge you to read Kat’s piece in Bustle if you love your nine to five and you’re struggling to understand why I wouldn’t.
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