Hobby turned Career turned Shit
Back in high school, I started graphic design because I liked it..then my friends started liking my work so I started charging for it. Years later it became a career for me, but now I hate it. Maybe it's just me (hopefully not) but knowing that graphic design is what I do for a decent living creates a great amount of stress.
Has anyone else ran into this problem of making a career out of your hobby, then finding that the stress is making you dislike the craft as a whole? If this happened to you, how did you get back on the right track?
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When I graduated I was actually holding a full time programming and a part time graphic design gig for about 3 months. (so.little.sleep!)
What I realized was, that for me to be happy I needed to work on things that could actually be 'finished'.
Graphic design is just so maddeningly subjective that I could endlessly push pixels around the screen and never actually reach my goal.
The same with front-end work / css for me. I just need to shift focus to the backend, or even write some unit tests now and then.
otherwise it never feels like I 'win' anything, and it just becomes tedious and depressing.
I'm 26, coding since 15 and working since 19. I still love my craft as a hobby, but I'm unable to find a stress free job since 2010.