When you have a creative mind, your wheels are always turning. You never get a rest from the commotion inside of your mind. Unlike most people, who work a nine to five job, you are unable to stop thinking about work once your head hits the pillow at night. You are inspired to create at odd hours. You wake up in the middle of the night with ideas on your mind. You do not get well-needed breaks during holidays and birthdays. You work through celebrations. Even if you have stepped away from your pencil or paintbrush to spend time with your loved ones, your mind is elsewhere. You are never fully present because you are always thinking, always planning.

When you have a creative mind, people assume you are lazy. They assume your work is easy, and most of your time is spent slacking off, when really, you spend entire weekends working and barely give yourself a chance to rest. They trivialize the hard work you have put into your art. They believe their traditional careers are tougher, even though you are going against the odds by pursuing your passions. Your creativity should be celebrated, but it is only ridiculed. Everyone thinks they can do what you do — but hardly anyone has the guts to try.

When you have a creative mind, you are tricked into feeling like you are falling behind. You see artwork from talented artists on social media. You see brilliant performances from actors in movies and musicals. You hear about upcoming book releases and album releases on a daily basis. When you come across finished products from other creatives, you compare them to your works in progress and feel inferior. You become distracted by what others have accomplished and forget to take into account how much work it must have taken for them to get there. Instead of feeling inspired by your peers, instead of letting their success motivate you to reach your own success, your instinct is to become jealous.

When you have a creative mind, you are never satisfied. You never think you are doing enough. You push yourself towards the brink of exhaustion. You criticize yourself even when you are trying your hardest. You could get a million compliments on your work and will ignore them to dwell on the one negative comment. Since art is subjective, there is no way for you to measure your success aside from unhealthy measurements like views or paychecks. When you are in a creative field, it is difficult to take a step back and see how much you have accomplished because there is no way to measure how much joy your art has brought. There is no way to tell how much it moved a person aside from taking their word for it.

When you have a creative mind, you struggle to find an end point to your work. No matter how many hours you have put into a project, you always feel like there is something you can add to your painting, something you can edit inside your novel, something you can change about your lyrics. You have a fear of finishing what you have worked on because you want it to come out perfect. You want everyone to love what you have created as much as you do — but you know as soon as you release your work into the world, it no longer belongs to you. It belongs to everyone. And not everyone is going to appreciate what you have done.

When you have a creative mind, sometimes it feels like a curse — but deep down, you realize it is actually a blessing.