As a child, I was given huge art sets for birthdays and Christmas, filled with everything: small tubes of acrylic and oil paint, watercolor palettes, brushes in every size, freshly sharpened colored pencils, and creamy oil pastels in every shade of the rainbow. Pastels were my favorite. The set I loved most was a heavy rectangular wooden box with folding drawers that opened out on both sides to reveal the entire inventory, organized into satisfying rainbow gradients. I'd pull it out and draw, or paint, or color, with supplies scattered across the bedroom floor or the kitchen dining table for hours.
I had so many sketchbooks and pads of thick, sturdy paper, and most of them were only half full. I started many artworks at once, and when I got bored or didn't like where a piece was going, I'd abandon it and start over, or switch to something totally different. Sometimes I ripped the page out. That's the perfectionist in me, wanting each sketchbook to hold only beautiful, finished masterpieces. It would be years before I understood that a sketchbook is allowed to house your messy, imperfect, unfinished work. You're allowed to practice in it. You're allowed to make mistakes. Learning how to create, not just how to produce a perfect creation, is part of the process.
I drew and painted a lot of flowers, cute cartoon animals, and the occasional nature landscape. I loved colored gel pens, especially the glitter ones my mom bought in big, bright sets. She's a creative person herself, and she's the one who taught me to journal when I was about seven. Around the same time, in second grade, we made notebooks out of construction paper (mine was light purple) and wrote a story inside. I still had blank pages left over, so my mom helped me turn it into my first journal. I was fascinated by handwriting, too, and even now I'm conscious of writing neatly in my journal.
And I loved beads. They were sparkly and colorful, and it felt so satisfying to curate a palette, string it together, and end up with something I could wear. First it was the neon plastic beads from the children's craft aisle. Over time, my mom built up a collection of real jewelry beads, and I loved those even more.
Looking back, I think what I loved most was that feeling of wonder. I was endlessly curious about how colors worked together, how a material behaved, and how I could bring what was in my imagination, or my own interpretation of the world around me, to life with my hands. It was always a surprise. And it calmed me. Creating taught me to focus on what was in front of me, to make something original from within myself, to lose track of time. I could stop whenever I wanted, or keep going for hours until my eyes were tired and I couldn't stop yawning.
I was so present in those moments that it never occurred to me to turn any of it into something concrete. I just followed my curiosity to the next medium, the next subject, the next idea.
So much of that child is still me. I'm still precise and attentive to detail, and I still scrap ideas when I'm bored or unhappy with how they're going. I'm still drawn to florals, nature, and vivid colors. I still love oil pastels, even if I don't draw that often anymore. I still journal, and I still love beading. When I'm anxious or overwhelmed, art is where I go. I can spend long stretches by myself, completely absorbed in a project, and come away fulfilled.
*
At some point while I was exploring my passion for art, a thought arrived, and it has never really left: I want to spend all my days doing this. I can't pinpoint when. But growing up, the adults around me made it clear that the purpose of work was financial security. You studied something that would lead to a job that would make money so that you would be safe. I don't remember anyone saying that it mattered whether you actually liked what you were studying, or whether your work gave you a sense of purpose. Looking back, I was socialized to believe that pursuing creativity was a question of safety.
This was before social media took over the modern world, when there weren't as many visible examples of people building careers in the arts. The vision of what was possible was narrow. I understand where the adults were coming from. They had endured financial struggles themselves and didn't want to watch me go through the same thing. As I got older, I heard it more and more: choose a practical skill, make that your job, and you can still do art in your free time.
It makes sense, logically. But I kept coming back to the same thought. If I invest all that time in learning the practical thing and make it my job, it will only keep taking time away from the thing I actually want to be doing. How many times do you hear about people who climbed the corporate ladder, achieved so much "success", and still felt empty, because none of it was what they wanted for themselves? Then they feel they wasted their lives. To me, that sounds so much worse than taking the risk of pursuing what lights you up, even if it's the less conventional path. It's one of my biggest fears: getting to the end of my life and realizing I spent it on something that wasn't what I wanted.
Still, in high school and into college, choosing a creative path made me feel naive and irresponsible. I can't say I've completely shaken that feeling. I'm a human being in the middle of the story, and I still grapple with self-doubt. But when I imagine the end of my life, and I picture myself having chosen someone else's version of success for my life, that seems far more immature and irresponsible. Was I not mature enough to let go of other people's opinions about how I live my own life? Was I not responsible enough to stand by what I knew I wanted, instead of abandoning myself for external approval? No way. I'm not putting myself through that.
And I didn't just consider an artistic field. I did it. I studied fine arts with a concentration in photography, including studies abroad in Florence, Italy. I worked for a few years as a photography assistant and have freelanced throughout my twenties. My portfolio, across different mediums and subjects, is huge, and I'm proud of it. But I wouldn't say I've reached my dream of a creative life yet. The part I'm still working on is a sustainable livelihood from my passions. I used to be embarrassed, earlier in my twenties, to admit I wanted an unconventional creative life. Now that I've tried the conventional, practical path, I'm far more certain that the creative one is where I'm meant to be.
What's interesting is that I don't think I ever stopped believing in my creative potential. I just gradually absorbed other people's beliefs about where art was supposed to fit in a life: not the main priority, not something that will provide for you (maybe ever), not as meaningful or impressive as the things that were supposedly more important, like a high-paying job, marriage, kids, a house, whatever society deems successful.
*
The jobs I held during those years were mostly retail and food service. An ordinary workday was repetitive and eventually dull: folding clothes, ringing up orders, organizing inventory, the same tasks over and over. Or it was stressful, checking off a never-ending to-do list in an impossibly short timeframe. As a visual merchandiser, I was the only one in the store, which was the norm for the company, dressing mannequins, building displays, and executing product moves for every department more or less by myself. The expectations were unfairly high, and I had my share of feeling inadequate, unsupported and extremely pressured by a toxic boss.
Underneath it all was the feeling that I was draining my energy and dimming my own light for a job I never wanted for my life anyway. I was painfully aware that I was spending my time learning, training, and becoming whatever the job required, and that nothing I got in return would ever make it worth enduring. The paycheck never compensated for the stress, and some of those jobs took a toll on my self-worth and on how I saw my own capabilities. They weren't creative, either. I followed strict instructions and methods, with little room for the creativity I love bringing to every part of my life. Working toward someone else's goals felt hollow, too. The metrics and objectives mattered to the company, which is normal, but nothing about them gave me a reason to care.
Outside work, my days off were never enough to recover from the week, let alone to get into a place where I could engage with my art. Weeks or months would pass without touching a project: no photos, no embroidery, barely any journaling beyond how stressed I was. That made me so sad.
It felt unfair that financial security came at the cost of a job I constantly wanted to escape, from the stress, from feeling inadequate, from tasks that would be undone again later or go unacknowledged. I tried to build thick skin and a healthy mindset. I reassured myself it was temporary. I still couldn't shake the feeling of being stuck, and it scared me. It goes back to my awareness that life is finite, and the panic of realizing I was spending my precious time on something I didn't want. Even with financial security, I felt like I was wasting away, like my creativity was atrophying. Every one of those jobs came to an end, and every time I felt an enormous relief. What I want is the job I don't have to escape from, the kind of work so engaging and meaningful that I'd have to be dragged out of my studio after a whole day of creating.
The moment I knew I'd had enough came during my visual merchandising job. I was being talked down to by an uptight boss whom no one liked and everyone feared, someone who focused what you did wrong and rarely on what you did right. I didn't even like the job anymore and was already weighing how to leave. And the stress was affecting my body. I became very underweight. My arms were noticeably thin, and clothes I'd worn for years had extra room in them. This job is literally making me waste away. Fuck this. No one deserves to go through this.
Around that time, a thought I'd been carrying for a while got louder: I want to see what happens if I give myself permission to go after what I truly want. I'd been reaching for certainty that things would work out, some guarantee that the creative path would be worthwhile. At some point I had to let that go and move forward anyway. The conventional path had already taken so much from me that I felt I had nothing left to lose by finally trusting my intuition. It felt like an act of rebellion, and an act of self-preservation. Both literal, because of my physical condition, and spiritual, because I was afraid my creative potential would never be fully realized. It felt like a long-overdue homecoming, and a refusal to keep betraying something I'd known all along was important. I needed to stop fitting creativity into the leftover scraps of a conventional life and start building a life around it.
*
I can't recall the exact moment I decided to stop looking for conventional jobs. It happened gradually, after I left that visual merchandising position. Going after a creative career meant looking for roles that matched my creative skills and could be done remotely. I was about seven months from moving to the Philippines, and the plan was to find a remote job and take it with me. That didn't happen, and not for lack of trying. As life keeps showing me, I need to be unwavering in my vision of the life I want and flexible in my approach to how it happens. The search continues, but I feel aligned with the direction I'm moving in.
It also meant opening up to a concept I'd been seeing on social media: the portfolio career, with multiple part-time, contract, and freelance jobs and side hustles adding up to multiple streams of income. Honestly, it sounds promising. I've never pictured myself working a traditional 9-to-5 for the next several decades anyway. The possibilities I imagined included photo editing and retouching, digital marketing and SEO content writing, social media management, and content creation. Maybe even selling my art too.
For a long time I believed I needed to know the exact steps before I could give myself permission to begin. Starting blindly, and figuring it out as I went, was too scary. If I had a clear plan, I thought, it would guarantee the outcome and prove the pursuit was worthwhile. Writing that out, I can see it isn't how life works. I was afraid of financial instability, overwhelmed by not knowing where to start, and terrified of failing.
What never crossed my mind was that something I loved couldn't become a livelihood. I'd seen countless people make a living from their creativity, and I asked myself, again and again: if other people can do it, why not me? But the voice asking didn't sound optimistic. It sounded overcome by sorrow, almost hopeless. It wasn't they did it, so it's possible for me too. It was what's wrong with me? What am I lacking that makes me unworthy of the life I want? Why am I not good enough to have that too? I never understood the weight of that grief until I wrote it out just now. And it makes me think of the little girl who drew and painted and wrote for hours on her bedroom floor. I would never want her to feel unworthy of what made her happy, fulfilled, and most like herself. This lifelong pursuit, it’s all for her.
What finally made not knowing a bad enough reason to stay where I was? Imagining myself a year from now, or two, or five, in the exact same position: still too scared to try, still avoiding the work that would actually move the needle.
Trusting my intuition here has meant slowing down enough to learn the difference between action from anxiety and action from alignment. Anxiety has a loud, frantic voice. It asks question after question and feels hurried and urgent. Alignment, even when it's unfamiliar, speaks quietly. It states things simply and matter-of-factly, and it feels calm and still. Anxiety works hard to convince; alignment lets the truth surface.
My idea of failure has changed, too. It feels less like a verdict on my capabilities or worthiness and more like putting in reps. It seems you have to face many challenges and failures, sometimes over and over, before you reach the success you're after. If I never started taking myself and my creativity seriously, I'd only be putting off the reps of hearing "no" on the way to eventually hearing "yes."
The way I view success hasn't changed much since I was a child. Back then it was simply spending my days doing what I love because it makes me happy, and that meant making art. Money didn't factor in; it felt like an adult logistical problem. I'd still choose art every day even if it never paid me. Now that I'm an adult, though, I do have to support myself, and so I want to find a way to make a livelihood from my passions.
It's probably only in the past year that I've truly understood what it means to trust myself. It isn't a guarantee of the outcome I want. It's believing I can handle whatever happens, that I'll have my own back through whatever challenges come on this quest for a creative life. I don't have to know everything before I start. I have to believe I can figure things out as they come. That doesn't mean I won't be scared or doubt myself, or that I'm suddenly confident. But I'm willing to try.
*
What I'm doing now starts at the foundation: my daily habits. I'm realizing how much it matters to take my everyday choices seriously and be intentional with my time. I started with the most basic questions. Am I sleeping enough? Eating well and staying hydrated? Exercising daily? Making time to journal for my mental health? Then I started figuring out how to balance two kinds of work: the career-building side (job research, freelance pitches, studying skills like SEO and AEO, analytics, CMS platforms, HTML and CSS, email platforms, and content strategy) and my creative practice, both hands-on and digital (embroidery, photography, photo editing, journaling, essay writing, travel writing for my website, reading). I don't love calling the first kind "productive," because it implies my art isn't. Both are real work.
I wouldn't have taken the idea of refining my professional skillset seriously before. But I kept seeing these skills in the job listings I was reading, and they're worth learning, not only for jobs but for my own online presence and personal brand. That's why I made a study plan.
A typical day (though not always) goes like this: wake up, matcha, breakfast, and either journaling or a hands-on project like embroidery. Exercise, then study, lunch, more studying into the afternoon, and a creative project, hands-on or digital. Dinner, then unwinding with something else creative, getting ready for bed, and honestly, back to a creative project until I'm so tired I fall asleep. A lot of the time, inspiration flows for me like crazy at night, sometimes until late. It's not the best for optimizing sleep, but I can't help following it until it stops flowing for the day.
When progress is slow or opportunities don't materialize, I try to detach emotionally from the outcome (like not hearing back on a job application) and continue with the day I'd already planned. I channel the disappointment into giving the next task my best. It's not that I never feel hurt or doubt myself anymore. But I remind myself that if I keep making progress on the things I know are good for me and for my goal, the outcome I'm working toward will eventually happen.
I still compare myself to people who seem to have figured out their creative careers. The difference is that I no longer look at their ideal circumstances and take the gap between us personally. I ask myself what I admire about their story, their process, their journey, and what I could apply to mine.
Honestly, the thing I question whether I'm being unrealistic, stubborn, or idealistic about, isn't my dream of spending my days making art. It's my approach to making it happen. Sometimes I hold so tightly to a certain set of steps that I forget to ask whether I can be more flexible with my methods when they aren't working.
When doubt creeps in, I try to give myself proper breaks. I used to think constant productivity meant I was moving in the right direction. But being busy while exhausted, or while nothing is flowing, doesn't get me to my goal any faster. And no matter how much I did in a day, if I felt anxious or doubtful it never felt like enough, especially without tangible signs of progress. So now I'm practicing listening to my inner voice when I need rest, and letting go of the belief that no visible progress means I'm not doing enough. Often, when I come back after resting, things start flowing again.
My relationship with creativity has changed because I finally treat it as a true priority, not an afterthought. My discipline is stronger. If I want to take my art seriously, it needs intentional time every single day, with the same importance as exercising, studying, and meal prepping. It deserves a spot in my most productive hours. And when inspiration calls, I take it seriously enough to follow it in that moment. Sometimes I literally drop whatever I'm doing. At the very least, I write the idea down so I can come back to it.
Even without the external validation that tells me this choice is working, I feel that this time is cultivating the version of myself who can hold and sustain the dream I'm working toward.
*
If I could tell little me something about the life I'm building now, it would be this: no matter what happens in pursuit of our dream, I'm going to be there for you. You can trust me.
I recognize so much of her in myself today. We share the same sense of wonder when we engage with anything creative, whether we're working on a project, looking at artwork, or simply noticing the beautiful things around us. We notice beauty, let ourselves be captivated by it, and make something out of it. We can both stay in a creative flow state for hours, sometimes all day, so much so that even when Mom and Dad repeatedly remind us to take a break, we don't get up from our seat until much later.
Pursuing a creative career feels like turning back to her and honoring her. I spent so much of our life denying her what made her happiest and most like herself, and I don't want to put her through that anymore. Simple as that.
My definition of a creative life is still pretty much what it was in the beginning: spending my time creating art. However I end up earning a living, through a creative job or some way I'm not aware of yet, I know I'll be spending as much of my time as possible creating. An ordinary Thursday would look like hours upon hours in my home studio, in a creative flow state: drawing, editing photos, embroidering, writing, playing with colors and florals and sparkly gel pens.
That life will make room for traveling the world, and as much quality time as possible with my loved ones. It will make room for a beautiful sanctuary of a home, and for taking art projects with me wherever I go, to cafes, on commutes, to waiting rooms. It will make room for a community of other creative people who enjoy each other's company while working on their own projects, or maybe collaborate on something together. And if my creative livelihood looks different from what I first imagined, I believe it will still fulfill the deeper desire underneath the dream.
Persistence, to me, now means checking in with my inner voice about the intention behind my choices. Noticing whether I feel aligned with an action or a path, and honoring the answer enough to adjust if I need to. It means moving in an aligned direction, not pushing through hardship without first considering how I feel about it.
And if you too are carrying a dream quietly and waiting to pursue it, here’s what I’d tell you: trusting yourself to navigate uncertainty builds more confidence than believing you need everything figured out first. So start before you're ready.
What I know for certain now, and didn't before, is that I can trust myself.