TL;DR: Striving for greatness is fine, but so is being competely middle-of-the-road with a regular paycheque.

A couple of months ago, I went through an existential crisis. This was my second one in as many years, and both essentially boiled down to one thing — my work.

Let’s back up a bit. I was taught to be self-sufficient and independent. And I was taught that having financial stability was the key to a life of contentment. I was also taught that having talent meant nothing if you didn’t use it well. All wonderful lessons, but notoriously difficult to implement. Just take one look at the spam in comments sections around the Internet promising many moneys for very little work, and tell me it isn’t on everyone’s mind. Couple that with the millenials’ obsession with Finding Your Passion, and you have an understanding of my dilemma. I had chosen an off-beat and über-cool career, but it came with a generous serving of Struggling Artist. I (often) walked around feeling like I had life figured out because I was doing what I loved, and I wasn’t working a day in my life.

Now, back to where I was a short while ago. I’m a freelance photographer and very early on in my career, I discovered that the glamorous parts made up a teeny-tiny part of the whole. The rest of it was tedious, monotonous and frankly, something I wasn’t very good at. Work is called work for a reason. I had no clue, starting out, that I would essentially be running my own business — marketing and finance and branding…all of that. The more I tried to be good at all of it, the more I hated it. I chose assignments that involved less of the business-y parts and more of the fun parts. Eventually, though, that model stops working — six years and two cities into my career, I realised that I needed to grow or get out.

At this point, I started to think about the practicality of what I was doing. I had just turned 30 and friends of mine were living by themselves, running their own (albeit rented) homes, and some of them were even investing money in property of their own. They all had savings, however minimal, that allowed them to travel, shop and generally live like adults. For me, however, I was living rent-free at home, but mostly experiencing a life of solitude because I couldn’t really afford to go out and live it up. Being 30 and not being able to afford things is a very painful wake-up call, in my opinion. All the money I earned, I spent on necessities and on the business itself. So it eventually came down to this: give up this amazingly fun career I’ve (sort of) worked on building for the last six years, along with some very expensive equipment, get a regular job, and become a normal member of the workforce OR continue being a somewhat average photographer, earn lots of cool points, and maybe be recognised for my talents along the way. It sounds simple when I put it like that, and maybe I should’ve done that when I made my decision. At the time, however, it was a gut-wrenching process. I love being a photographer. I had just bought a new camera, and I wanted to play with it all the time. But I just didn’t have it in me to aggressively promote myself or my work. I didn’t have it in me to seek out untapped markets. I didn’t have it in me to figure out how to scale my business. I loved the artistic process, but I knew I wasn’t cut out to be an entrepreneur. I also realised that, having devoted my whole working life to one thing meant that I had close to zero experience doing anything else. If I did decide to jump ship, what would I even do? I’d have to start at the bottom, working with 20-somethings fresh out of college, and I’d have to work my way up. And I had no idea if I could even handle a regular job. I don’t know what it’s like to hate Mondays and cherish Fridays.

So I did the most adult thing I could think of, and took a good, hard look at my finances. Could I support myself if I had to, while continuing to be a photographer? No. That made my decision for me. I started the job hunt, polished up my very sparse-looking resume and applied to jobs EVERYWHERE. The one thing I knew I could do reasonably well was write, so I looked for jobs in that area. Very quickly, with some excellent advice from friends and family, I managed to land a job at a startup. It was a combination of timing and sheer, dumb luck, if you ask me. I now work with a tech team, I’ve learned more about startups in the past two months than I knew my whole life, and I’m doing something I seem to be pretty good at.

Fast-forward to this moment, and here is what I know:

1. I now look at articles like this and others like it, and relate to them on a much deeper level.

If you’re born with a talent, it’s a crime to let it go to waste. And I still wholeheartedly believe that. I draw when the mood hits me, I write poems and limericks, I sing — albeit karaoke — and I take photos. LOTS of photos. But now, my photos are of things I love and am inspired by. It’s no longer about the money. I only shoot assignments that make me happy. And isn’t that a key ingredient to keeping your passion alive? Loving it? That’s true for me, at any rate.

2. I now know what it means to plan for the future.

If you had asked me last year if I could go on a holiday with you, one that I’d have to save for, I’d have said no. Not because I didn’t want to, but just because I would most likely not be able to save the money for it. I lived paycheque to paycheque, and I could never predict what the next month would be like. Now, however, even though I’ve only just begun, I’ve already got my ducks in a row. I save enough, I pay rent, and I have enough left over to do fun things. I’ve even got plans for my future. From not knowing what my next week looked like to knowing where I want to be next year — that’s a leap I never thought I’d be able to make.

3. I offer so much more to the people in my life.

When you have very little money and an unstable career, the people who feel the weight of that most often are your family and your partner. Not only did I not have a Life Plan, but I was also snappy and irritable, and I didn’t have much to talk about, because my days were spent napping and binge-watching trashy shows. I didn’t have much to feel good about, to be honest. It’s amazing what a little stability can do for all of that. I am a much nicer person to be around, I’m exhausted far more often these days, but I’m far less snappy, and I’m pretty sure that having a partner who can take care of herself is a good thing for most men.

4. I don’t feel like a failure.

Accepting that I wasn’t going to be the Next Big Thing in photography was a huge blow to my confidence. I saw my peers, each one more talented than the next, doing wonderful things with their lives, and it was impossible not to compare myself to them. I constantly wondered what I was doing wrong, and questioned my skills more times than I am comfortable admitting. Here’s the funny part. I’m a qualified photographer. I am NOT a qualified writer. But writing has allowed me to experience adulthood in a way that photography couldn’t. And that, in itself, has allowed me to believe that I’m capable of a lot more than I realised.

…so now, why does any of this matter?

Maybe I didn’t try hard enough to be an entrepreneur. Maybe I took the easy way out. You know what, though? I couldn’t be happier. I write for a living, something I never thought I’d do. I shoot for fun, and sometimes money, which is probably how I should’ve done it all along. And I finally feel like an adult.

Not everyone has the opportunity to follow their dreams for as long as I did. Not everyone has the kind of support system that I did — the kind that lets you be broke while still supporting you and loving you. I’m glad I had the chance to be that person, because now I know that I’m good at being part of a team. I love not having to be the decision-maker. I love that I’m contributing to someone else’s vision. I love that I’ve found something (else) I’m good at. Many people have expressed this thought far better and more concisely than I have I’m sure, but here’s my two cents: It’s ok to be an employee, a facilitator of someone’s dreams, a cog in the wheel. After all, we can’t ALL be CEOs and Founders. Someone has to be the worker bee. I’m more than okay with that.