Creatives: The obstacle is the way…

If you’re a graphic designer, copywriter, or creative type (as non-creatives like to call us) I’ll bet good money you had a conversation this year that went like this: “Have you seen ChatGPT/Midjourney/Generative AI platform? It does what you do in like, five seconds!”, explains copywriter Tom Valcanis.

Gritting our teeth and smiling politely, we nod and reply, “I have! That’s so interesting.” The curses reserved for them; you hide beneath your tongue.

Couple that with inflation running rampant and businesses boarding up the house to weather economic storms, we creatives are often left out in the cold.

For me, 2023 was a bit of a shocker. Down from the highs of pre- and mid-COVID, I may not have been using Afterpay to buy packets of mee goreng, but sometimes a meagre month felt like I was in Uni all over again. Forgoing luxuries, declining nights out, and shaking couches in the hope of freeing coins buried deep within. Not destitute and feeling winter’s unforgiving chill but acting like it because I’m dramatic!

However, it always reminds me of the philosophy that the obstacle is the way – that the impediment to our progress is usually the way forward. Think of a video game – how do you know you’re heading in the right direction? Because you’re faced with enemies blocking your path.

The greatest stoic, Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius said “The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

Our goal as creative people is to help people. Designers create designs, writers write words, coders write code not because it’s cool and they can browse YouTube in their downtime. (I mean, we totally do, but that’s beside the point.) Our purpose is to assist others.

We can’t help that the world now has Generative AI at its disposal. It might seem like Game Over for creatives. We can’t dissuade people out of mass-adopted innovation. Can you imagine trying to tell someone to ride horses to work and read by candlelight again? It’s an absurdity. So what do we do instead?

We will accommodate and adapt to what’s laid out before us. If you can’t be the best, be different. If you’re striving to be better than what you did last time, the attitude is enough. ChatGPT might generate thousands of words at the drop of a hat, but they can’t rob us of our intention to succeed or our disposition to advance.

Problems are seldom as bad as we think. We can blame everything under the sun for our failures, but really only one thing is at fault – our attitude and approach. Imagine thinking that whatever obstacle comes your way is irrelevant. Sounds like a recipe for being unstoppable to me.

Though we may marvel at our peers who may have bigger houses, faster cars, and gleaming Instagram posts from the Amalfi Coast, they have no bearing on your very own here and now. Live in accordance with your purpose. Using your intellect to serve others. As the new Stoic philosopher Ryan Holiday says, “Genius often really is just persistence in disguise.”

Every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition in mind, body, and soul.

I hope for all of us fellow creative freelancers, 2024 is ripe with them.

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