Last night, I couldn’t sleep. Not because I took a nap earlier in the day or because I drank too much caffeine, my brain was simply too actively thinking to the point of where it was compromising my ability to fall asleep. The selling of my house and the subsequent reconfiguration of life was undoubtedly a substantial change, but with the change has come some new lines of thinking as the result of the murky waters of what new paths lie ahead of me in the course of my life.
The one very particular thing that my brain was wrestling with throughout the evening was, something that I haven’t really given that much thought to in the past, other than cursory ideas that never were taken very seriously, resulting myself to fall back into my content little bubble of routine. I’m talking about my career, as a graphic designer. Lately, I feel like I’ve been tapping at the ceiling of my current career path, and unless I want to resign myself to staying dormant and padding years doing what I do, I can do that, but then the result of such a choice leads to a lot of fairly time-consuming and not necessarily very lofty end games, that I’d question if I’d be content with when I’m well into my 40s and 50s.
It’s not so much the career I’ve been feeling some discontent with, it’s also the money that comes along with what I do. Honestly, I’ve never really been that driven by money; I know what I like to make in order to live comfortably within my means, but I’m also not blind to the working world around me, and that there are plenty of other designers with specializations more attuned to the current creative market, that make noticeably more money than I do, albeit with an equally proportionate higher risk of job security than I have. But there are plenty of those in the creative marketplace that make more money than I do, and up until recently, I’ve been fine with that.
But I think I’ve been content over the last 13 years living in a household where the combined income was one that was pretty well into the upper-middle class echelon, and now that I’m basically on my own now, such numbers don’t look nearly as promising or conveying potential for loan repayment when it comes to planning for the future, like another house. Suddenly, I’m feeling like my earning capabilities aren’t just inadequate, but not necessarily conducive to saving at a rate that would make the future not feel like too far away.
It also doesn’t help that despite the fact that selling my house with its underwater mortgage and actually turning a small profit in the process certainly felt like a win, now that the honeymoon period is fading away, I’m beginning to look at the small profit as just that; small. Sure, I am eternally grateful that I made something at all, instead of having to bring cash to the closing, but in the grand scheme of what the real estate game is, the goal is always to sell property and make enough to seed the next one. I won’t get into specifics, but what I walked away with sure as shit isn’t close to being a down payment for my next one.
I don’t want to necessarily be a person who chases dollars, but I’m arriving at a crossroads where I feel like I’m getting stagnant, hitting the low ceiling of my current career path, on top of feeling like I want to make more money so that I can improve the potential of my future, because more money is necessary in order to buy my way into better situations sometimes.
Aside from the statistical Hail Mary of winning the lottery, the easiest way to accomplish more money is to metaphorically reconfigure myself to acquire more appealing, higher pay-warranting skills and abilities, and then seek out employment that has more earning potential.
I don’t just want to make more money right now, I think I really want to alter my career path to where not just the earning potential is better, but simply more relevant and exciting work is present.
I will fight tooth and nail for the medium, and I take a lot of objection to whenever people try to tell me that print is dead. Print will never die, and print will always be around, because when the day is over, people still like to have material possessions, and as long as physical matter exist, physical matter will still need to be designed for. Unfortunately, popular perception is unfortunate reality, and there’s no way to refute that print simply does not get paid as well as digital does, despite the fact that even printed materials are still designed and simulated digitally, before being produced physically.
However, defending my profession isn’t assisting me in the rat race of accumulating the kind of equity necessary in order to make my future hopes a reality in a timely fashion, so even if it means some life changes, I’m definitely leaning towards the path of change instead of complaining about it and settling for what’s beginning to feel like a stagnant mediocrity.
I’ve been thinking really hard lately about some specialized schooling. I don’t have the nerve or the capacity to go full retard and quit my job so that I can dive into a immersive training regimen, nor do I necessarily have the money, or would have the money without a job to bolster it, but I’m definitely looking hard at programs that offer part-time training courses, so that I can expand my skillset and open doors into positions that I’d auto-ignored in the past, because I didn’t bring the necessary skills or experience to the table.
This isn’t the first time that I’d thought about some higher education/additional training, but I’d always used distance from the city and the fact that I actually was content with my career as reasons why I never pursued it, but both of those circumstances aren’t necessarily the same anymore right now. Also, my cheap Asian blood doesn’t ever want to spend money on something as intangible as learning. I’m not that far from the city anymore, and I am not feeling particularly content with my career, and I’ve always understood the notion that it takes spending money sometimes to earn it despite my hesitance at practicing what is preached.
So with each day I feel this way, I’m one step closer towards jumping off the diving board and diving into a deeper pool, with hopes that I come out the other end stronger and more appealing with greater earning potential that I’d hope to tap into.
The bottom line is that if I want to improve my future, nobody is going to make it happen other than myself. If I want to make more money, it’s myself that needs change, not the market around me. A long time ago, I said that red mage hybrid designers don’t really exist, but mostly because I was resentful that companies would try to cheaply look for singular designers to do the job of two, and although I still do resent that employer line of thinking, I do know that hybrid designers exist, even if they’re primarily utilizing one facet of their skillset more than others. If I really want to get serious, it would be my goal to grow into a more competent hybrid designer, and leave the print in my back pocket while I try to grow and improve in other disciplines. And hopefully, it’ll be worth it in the end.
