It's REALLY hard to express to people how it feels when you can make a living off your passion.
In my 20s I was able to make money doing my passion, and I had many long-term clients that allowed me to pay for rent and food. I was barely able to save and I had to pinch my pennies, but I was happy. I was fulfilled. I'd finish every day happy that I got to use my skills that brought me joy to bring other people joy.
Eventually I got to a point in life where I began thinking about starting a family and needed to make more money. I switched over to working for various corporate offices…..And I'm just drained.
The work I do is related to what I was doing in my 20s when I was self-employed, but it's so soulless. I can barely manage to put in more than 50% effort in my actual projects. It doesn't matter, though, because even if I gave it 100% someone down the chain would need to bitch about it and suggest changes to justify their jobs.
I end up getting burned out after a couple months. No one knows what to do with me and I'm not good at playing their games, so I've been let go from every job before a year is up. I've never been a bad employee at any other time in my life.
The problem is the money from these jobs allowed me a certain amount of freedom I didn't have when self-employed. I no longer have to worry about pinching pennies. I can live in a nicer place. I can have a stable relationship and save up for kids.
But I'm not built for this. I'm out of work now, and it's supposedly an employee's market, but I've applied to 400 jobs in my field and rarely hear back from anything. What's also bad is I haven't really kept up with the work and clients from my self-employment days, so my skills have depleted and I have no past or present clients. I'm so close to just applying to a job at McDonald's or something.
I also tried keeping up with my passion in my free time, but it just wasn't the same. I'd come home from work tired and cranky, and keeping up with my passions and friends became a chore. I became the person I pitied – The person who hates their job and does nothing but sit around and watch Netflix all night and weekend.
But you have to play these bullshit games to be successful in life, and this is where the existential dread kicks in. I've had 30 years of optimism kicked out of me by working these soulless day jobs. If I want to have any chance at a decent life I have to keep doing this shit for 30+ more years if I'm lucky. I have no idea how some people can stay at a specific job for years and not go mad.
I just feel there's no place for me in the world. I have a lot of positive characteristics that people admire, but apparently my only value to society comes from the money I can generate.