Person who majored in something most people mark off as ‘passion’ (Design/illustration). It depends, it’s complicated, and I wouldn’t exactly call what you’re asking ‘good’ or ‘bad’ advice as it really depends on who is the messenger and their past history with their creative ventures….maybe?
Many people give up when tough times come up, and try to compromise for some day job they stumble into out of either boredom or desperation. Then they might stumble into some more things, like a family, a house, a large car payment, a couple of addictions, a dash of health problems, and before you know it, the idea of giving all of that up to ‘write a book’, ‘draw my own things’ either would be hurting dependents, or would cause a world of other pain that the comfort of the known becomes easier than the unknown, especially as you get older and start to want to settle into some sort of routine. The social stigma as being seen as ‘different’ because you’re still failing at ‘real work’ for the sake of some craft other people don’t understand (or have romanticized/biased opinions over) can cause others to give up.
Others, that doesn’t really scare them off, and they’re willing to go through hell and back for a craft that on their death bed, they themselves may only understand or value. Is that something you can personally accept?
Mostly for me, it’s a part of me I’ve had to live with, whether I like it or not. Putting that urge 2nd just wasn’t working out, as yep, I can relate to the whole concept of working 40+ hrs a week doing crap you don’t care about other than money, then going nowhere with the rest of the time due to mental and physical exhaustion. Not creating, burnt me out to a deep pit I don’t like being in. So I recently left my day job to go back to my creative ventures, even if right now I’m still not 100% sure how I’m going to be making my living going forward. And I’m okay with that. But I don’t have much else other than perhaps some student loan lenders who would try and throw me off course, not much else in my life to lose right now, anyways. YMMV.
