Does Getting a Day Job Mean I am Giving Up on my Dreams?
Making big life decisions is hard.
I often think about the decisions I make and how they will impact the future. I always want to optimize and make sure I am making the best possible decision that will result in the greatest outcome for me down the road.
But it is often so hard to know what would be the right decision is. I have no idea what lies at the end of the road, and I lost my Magic 8 Ball a few years back.
So instead, I have to make the best decision based on the information I have in front of me.
The Big Dilemma
Right now, one of these big decisions is looking me in the face and is something I have been mulling over for a while. I feel I am at a crossroads. A fork in the road, so to speak.
For the last year, I have been learning coding. It happened during a time where work was slow and I decided to learn on a whim. I know this is unfathomable to many, but I ended up quite enjoying it.
A lot of coding is logic and problem solving, it often feels like a puzzle to be solved. When the code is broken and not working, trying to figure out what is wrong makes me feel like a detective, and when fixing the problem there is a strong sense of accomplishment.
So what started off as something I did on a whim, I started to take more seriously. I have now been studying coding for about a year, and am starting to wonder if I should take it to the next level and possibly get a job in the field.
The money would be decent, significantly more than what I currently make. And much of the work seems to be work-from-home, which means I have the flexibility to keep writing.
The problem is the more I get into coding, the less time I have for my writing. It is something I have already noticed in the last year. If time is a valuable resource and there are a finite amount of hours in the day, something needs to be given up.
Nothing comes without opportunity cost. The more hours that go into coding means the less hours I get to pursue my passion. The less hours I spend working on my novel. The less hours I get to outline, write, edit, rewrite, re-edit… and as of late I have really been feeling the sacrifice.
The Case for Writing
I care about writing deeply and it is something that continues to be important to me. While I have been enjoying my time coding, it can never replace writing as my passion. Coding is a stranger’s dog. It may be cute, but no matter how cute it is, my dog will always be better. And my dog is writing.
Every hour I learn Python or C++ is an hour that I am not learning about The Hero’s Journey. An hour I am not working on a TV pilot. And if I want to truly be a writer, should I not put all of my effort into this passion?
Is striving for a well-paying ‘day job’ even a good idea? Perhaps I get too comfortable making that money. I start getting lazy and putting off writing? The stress that comes with that job will exhaust me and I end up putting writing to the side day after day until it is a distant dream of the past?
I currently have a shitty job in Hollywood. I know people glamorize the film industry, but it really is a shitty job. The pay is not great and I don’t get enough hours, especially recently. But the positive is that it is also not something that requires a lot of brainpower. I never feel so drained after a shift that I cannot write afterwards. Even better, on days when work is slow, I am even able to write while on the clock.
I doubt that would be possible with a coding job.
If I give up coding and only focus on writing, I will finish my novel faster. There is no way around that, I will have more time and energy to put into it and the faster I finish that novel, the faster I can move onto the next project until one of them finally hits. When will that happen? Impossible to say. But at least I would be putting my entire efforts into it.
The Case for Coding
I sometimes worry that I romanticize the idea of the starving artist. That I feel I must suffer and live off scraps because I need that struggle to motivate myself. That if I was too comfortable I would become lazy and the dream would die.
But that is not necessarily true. I am actually good at self-motivating and I don’t think I would ever let the dream die because I have a decent job that pays well.
Why do I need to be a starving artist? Is it really necessary? Why not have a good day job that pays me decent while I strive for making a career out of my passion? There shouldn’t be any shame that comes with not worrying about rent.
I guess the resistance comes from the idea that if I have a job in coding, it would be symbolic of me losing some passion for writing. As if one can only come at the cost of the other. But this is not true. They are not mutually exclusive and both can find their appropriate place in my life.
And honestly, I am tired of being poor. The last year has been tough in particular with the writer’s strike. I don’t remember a rule book that said I have to be poor if I am pursing my passion. That aspiring writers must be poor.
If I can find a job I like that supports me, there is no reason not to take it.
So Where to go From Here
As of now, I still am not sure what route to take. For the time being, I am still going to code every day and I am still going to write every day. Will I pursue coding with all of my energy until I get a job? Probably not yet.
Will it happen eventually? I still don’t know.
And yes, that is not satisfying ending. It would be much more preferable if I made a firm decision on which path to take on this fork. But life is not always satisfying. Life is messy. And the decisions made in life even more so.
The best advice I can leave you with is this.
If you have a hard time making big decisions like I do, never lose your Magic 8 Ball.
