I ran across an interesting article on the Onion about cartoonist, Mark Seversen, who comes to the realization that his “day job” is now his “real” job:

“When I was younger, my attitude was ‘Never give in.’ Nowadays, my attitude is ‘Get real, dumbass.’ If I have any advice for all the young aspiring painters, novelists, and rock musicians out there, it’s probably that they should quit following their dreams before they rack up a lot of credit-card debt. The sooner you accept your real job, the sooner you can start to build up seniority and get on board with the pension plan.”

Pension plan? Really? This article was written in 2004, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t offer pension plans for dishwashers back then, which is what Seversen did for money.

From the article, Seversen started a website and completed 12 issues of his comic. When money troubles arrived, he quit working on his comics and would come home from the Day Job to watch television instead. “I transformed from an aspiring underground cartoonist into a non-aspiring restaurant worker.” (Note: I tried to find this guy and did a search for his website, but no luck.)

There are a few lessons in this guy’s story…

Lesson #1: Our art should not be held responsible for paying the bills.

Apart from being financially independent, we are all responsible for carrying our own financial weight in the world. If you want to be an underground indie cartoonist like this guy, more power to you, but the market will bare what the market will bare. Be prepared to have another source (or sources) of income. Creativity will suffer under too much financial pressure.

Lesson #2: Our time / life energy is a valuable, limited resource, so we need to exchange it for what brings us the greatest reward.

Getting a Day Job to supplement his cartooning was a good move on Severson’s part. Where he went wrong was in not continuing his search for something more financially rewarding. Sometimes, as is the case for many in this economy, you’ve got to take what you can get. But considering this guy had the skills to set up his own website, he probably had the skills to do something that would provide greater mental stimulation and pay him more for his time. We have no one to blame but ourselves when we choose to stay in a dead-end job.

Lesson #3: A frustrating, or less than satisfying day job can zap our creativity if we let it.

Obviously, Severson wasn’t thrilled with his profession. Instead of coming home from work and spending time on his art, he turned into a zombie in front of the television every night. This is something that can happen to all of us. Every line of work has its frustrations, but when they go unresolved for long periods of time, they infect our time away from the job. When that happens, it’s time for us to start looking for another Day Job. Don’t ever forget that you (not your employer) are ultimately responsible for your happiness.

Lesson #4: Our Day Jobs can change (and very often should), but I’m still an artist regardless of how I make my money.

Severson says he “transformed” from a cartoonist to a restaurant worker. My guess is that this isn’t really the case. I think he just got depressed and cynical, something that can happen to all of us from time to time. My belief is that after 7 years, Mark Severson the ARTIST, is alive and well and still pursuing his passion of cartooning (hopefully sans the dish-pan hands).

(UPDATE: A friend just clued me in that anything I read on the Onion is satirical. I guess that means that this story isn’t true and that Mark Severson does not exist. Or does he? I think we’ve all had times when we’ve let our day jobs encroach on our artistic aspirations.  Satirical article or not, the lessons remain the same.)