Artist and poet Austin Kleon (whose best-selling book Steal Like an Artist continues to inspire) explains why you should keep your less-than creative day job, and how to do it while pursuing your art on the side. Kleon writes:
“You have to pay the bills and feed the mouths, and you do it however you can…And my experience has been that economic security has always helped my art along more than any kind of ‘spiritual’ freedom or whatever…You always have a day job. Just hang in there. This is what I recommend: get up early. Get up early and work for two hours on the thing you really care about. Then, when you’re done, go to your job. When you get there, your boss can’t take the thing you really care about away from you, because you already did it. And you know you’ll get to do it tomorrow morning, as long as you make it through today.”
Read Kleon’s full explanation on how dull day jobs can actually help creativity thrive here.
This post was originally published on 99u.com.
Tanner is a digital producer who makes things to help creatives do more of what they love. Follow him on Twitter or learn more on his personal site.
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