WHEN WORK IS JUST A PAY CHEQUE<\/p>\n
For some, stability isn’t a prison but a foundation that allows them to build the life they want outside of work, or to build a side hustle.<\/p>\n
By day, 32-year-old Charmaine Yeo works full-time in beauty marketing. By night, she runs her own art label, Mochiak and Ahwoo, designing and selling bags, keychains and stickers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her creations have amassed a following of more than 80,000 on Instagram, and she regularly “booths” \u2013 that is, books and runs temporary booth appearances \u2013 at major craft festivals such as Artbox.<\/p>\n
But her office job, she admitted, isn’t something she’s passionate about.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I wouldn’t say I’m going all out to climb the corporate ladder,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rather, having a steady income gives her the freedom to experiment and grow her side business without fear. “The monthly salary keeps me safe to try out different things,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And unlike peers who have thrown themselves into their art businesses and other passion projects full-time, Ms Yeo is not ready to give up the stability of a monthly salary.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She spoke of how some full-time artists struggle if they don’t keep “boothing”. “I don’t want to feel that stress,” she said.<\/p>\n
She hopes to go full-time eventually, but for now, her focus is clear: build something she loves, while holding on to the financial safety net that makes risk feel less risky.<\/p>\n
DO WE HAVE TO LOVE OUR JOBS?<\/p>\n
The pressure on working adults to “find your passion” can feel overwhelming, but “it’s completely valid to treat work as a means to an end”, said Mr Ng.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If a role isn’t passion-driven, he added, it should serve another purpose \u2013 whether that’s offering financial security or time flexibility, for instance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Not every role will be a dream job, and that’s okay. The key is to be intentional.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WHEN WORK IS JUST A PAY CHEQUE For some, stability isn’t a prison but a foundation that allows…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":260645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,2563,54895,420,40750,25852,67,132,68,8066],"class_list":{"0":"post-260644","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-career","10":"tag-dream-job","11":"tag-jobs","12":"tag-passion","13":"tag-success","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-work"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115280562315460611","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}