So, been thinking about how I feel stressed pretty often.

And I realize, that I don't have work/life balance. What I have is work/work balance.
Thought I might write a little journal here, in case any of you all are in the same pickle.

I went to college for animation, that is supposed to be my career, worked at a game studio for 3 years, and a TV animation studio for 1 year, did freelance work for half a year.

Both studios closed, and the freelance gig was just one gig, because I didn't have enough experience to qualify for more.
So, I'm still working on art and animation, and developing things with friends, while I work in IT to pay the bills.

I know other animators, more successful animators, who nevertheless got totally burned out on the animation mill side of the industry, where they just chew through people for a decade then replace them with the next round of students. And who are also working day jobs now because they just can't anymore.

Also friends who never made it into the industry at all, but still want to work on cartoons.

And what a lot of us have in common is: we come home from work, and we sit down, and do what our career is supposed to be.
I limit the number of hours a day I work on or think about IT, and then I come home and try to plan or draw or animate stuff or at least talk about it on Telegram.
(when I'm not totally burned out and just zoning out to Netflix or some videogame).

Now, I have no intent on scaling back the art I do, this isn't about "maybe I should take a break", because it's MY ART, it's something I value a lot. (Plus I rarely get around to having time to make something finished)

But I think about other people who are:
* doing what they set out to do
* doing whatever becuase they never set out to do anything in particular
* doing something else, that they find acceptable as a career instead

All those people? Those are the happy families, the well adjusted people who have work-life balance! There's no dashed or unfulfilled dreams they're chasing, at least in what they have to do every day to pay the bills!
Those are the people that, when they're done with work, they can go out to a game, or a social event, meet people, have fun, build a real life. Because when the workday is over, there's no big "oh you should be working on building your real life now" - it's just literally time off, for living.

That's why all my spare time DOES get devoted to trying to figure out a way to make art pay. Because if I could make it to a point where I had a consistent income paid from my art, then maybe when I get off work, or am no longer in "freelance hours" if it turns out to be a freelance gig, I could just....ya know. Have fun with other people.

At any rate, I'm working on trying to develop two TV shows with friends, in the hopes that I can get there someday.
And I hope, if you're in the same situation, it serves as a wakeup call - we're not balancing work and life. Just work, and more (largely unpaid) work.

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Speaking of unpaid, if you like, you can always throw $$$ at my Patreon or Ko-fi or follow and subscribe to me on Twitch - or follow my Telegram channel for updates. Still trying to develop this stuff, but the more support I get, the more time I can devote to actually making the art you all follow me for.