There's an old saying that goes, "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life." We all want that kind of life, where you jump out of bed, excited to start a day filled with joy and significance. In a recent study, ninety percent of millennials said it was important to them that their work have a positive impact on the world. For artistic types, it's not just enough to have meaningful work, we also need to use our creative gifts. We'd love to have work that lets us maximize our talents for the good of all mankind, while paying the bills. After all, nobody wants to be a starving artist.

Our parent's generation doesn't usually get it, they were raised to find a steady job that they would stay in for decades. That job would provide for them, their children, their house -- all the way through to retirement. But for Generation Y and Z, that's just not our reality. The economy is volatile and employers can be fickle, we've seen too many horror stories to put all our trust in just one company. We don't want to put our eggs in the proverbial basket, so more and more people are turning to freelancing. I’ve been doing it sincerely 2015, and I can understand the appeal! 

Last year, I flew to Thailand to join friends and colleagues who had come from all over the world to celebrate the launch of our new Medialight campus as well as our 10th anniversary. I was invited to share lessons I’ve picked from years of balancing freelance work and community building. Afterwards, I got asked a question that has always come up in the years that I’ve worked with younger artists:

It’s one of those really good questions I've wrestled with over the years. I was born with zero business sense, but I am a huge nerd. Just give me a library card an an internet connection and I can try to find out! I read articles, books, blogs on entrepreneurship, productivity, creative life, business leadership, even finance. There’s a wealth of wisdom to be gleaned from those resources, but a lot of stuff doesn’t really apply to my part of the world. (401K? Universal Healthcare? Tax deductions for home offices? What are those magical things?)

Even the self-help pep talks only make sense if you grow up with messages like, “you can be whatever you want to be,” “be true to yourself,” and “follow your heart.” In Asia, we tell our children, “you can be whatever you want to be -- as long as you want to be a doctor or an engineer.”

Here’s another favorite: “You wanna do WHAT*?! Nobody is going to pay you for that.” 
Or even, “There’s no money in ART.*”

I used to resent being born in the Philippines, a country that was lagging behind its Asian neighbors after spending "three hundred years in a convent and fifty in Hollywood" (or four centuries of colonization under Spain and the US). I wanted the kind of life I saw on television and in the movies. When my family moved to England, I finally got to experience what that first-world life was like as soon as I set foot in my new high school. This wasn't even a fancy private school, I attended a small school in a town with a population of 2,000. 

Thanks to my Asian elementary education, I was very competitive. The funny thing was, grades didn't seem like a big deal to anybody. What a refreshing change from how I grew up, where if you were in the Top 10 of the class, it was a practically membership to the cool kids gang! 

I loved breezing through the exams and getting the best grades (not that anyone cared, not even the teachers or my fellow nerds!). But what really impressed me was that Math and Science weren't the only subjects that mattered. Even in my small town school with just the regular run-of-the-mill curriculum, they offered English Literature and Composition, Art, Music, Theater and even Design and Technology! They had an actual PE program (I was a nerd, so I didn't care for this much) and a pretty good library (this one I did appreciate!) If all their students have access to art supplies and music class and even just a decent library, no wonder first world countries are able to produce such creative people -- artists, inventors and innovators!

I was heartbroken when we had to move back to a third-world education where the only things that matter are how well you perform in Math, Science, and (because I'm Filipino) English. There's not a lot of room for Creativity in the curriculum of emerging economies,  we're too concerned with making sure we produce graduates who will be employable. 

I've been back in Asia two decades, and I've lived and worked with other creatives from other countries, from Africa to the Caribbean. We have a lot in common, our parents even have the same, "there's no money in art" script! It's not surprising, their generation probably had to grow in an an environment where they had to be realistic, sensible, practical. Life is generally more difficult where we're from than it is in more developed countries. We experience more barriers and limits set upon us by our government, economy, infrastructure and culture, slowing down our growth as individuals and as a society. We live and work for a better future, but we cannot change these things right now. 

This pragmatic mindset can stifle our creativity, or it can give us the wisdom we need to pursue this life for the long-term. Here are some of the things we have going for us in the emerging economies:

1. Low standard of living = it's cheap to live here. Very few of us have the privilege of going on a gap year to gallivant around the world where our money can stretch farther because everything is cheaper. For us residents, these are our normal everyday prices! Because we don't have to spend much for our regular expenses, this means we can afford to be cheap labor, especially we're establishing ourselves and building up our portfolio and client base. Of course, how "cheap" living expenses are will depend on where you live. I live in Makati (a Central Business District in Manila where the rents are pretty astronomical) but it's still cheaper than rent in other creative capitals like San Fransisco, Manhattan and London. Finding quick and healthy food is affordable, even in bigger cities. We can even find a person or a service to help us with housekeeping, laundry, and even childcare (as a mom, this is a big deal!) -- a privilege that is only accessible to the richest of the rich in more developed countries where labor costs are so high.

So the bad news is it's harder for us to be tourists compared to richer countries. The good news is we can afford to charge more competitive prices as creative professionals. And with world travel being what it is these days, we wouldn't want to travel much anyway, so it's not a bad tradeoff.

2. Technology and the internet is the great equalizer. Okay, I first need to say that internet connectivity varies greatly from place to place. I've experienced amazing internet speed in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam. In Manila, where I spend most of my time these days, we're lucky to get 5GBPS sometimes. And that's already in the middle of the Central Business district. It's even worse in other parts of the country, and in the world. So internet speed is a bit of a hiccup. But as long as you have a decent connection, you have just as much chance as getting that creative gig as another freelancer anywhere else in the world. The internet doesn't know who you are or where you come from, not really. 

You don't even need to have fancy gear. When I started in this business, only big agencies could afford the kind of equipment you need to produce video that could be seen by thousands, if not millions of people. Now, content is king, and with a simple phone camera, you could already something that could go viral. 

The barriers to entry into the creative field are as low as they've ever been. As long as you have a decent portfolio, good communication and client management skills, and the ability to stay up late at night for the occasional overseas call, the world is your oyster. 

3. Resilience and resourcefulness are our greatest strengths. By and large, developing countries have been held back from advancing because of centuries of colonization. Many of our nations have been victims of racism, oppression and hardship, even in recent years. This is a tragic reality that I sincerely wish I could change, but, sadly, I don't think this is going to get better anytime soon. 

However, I do appreciate that our difficult histories have given us the gift of GRIT, which is being able to persevere toward a goal despite being confronted by significant obstacles. The truth is that creative work is always hard, no matter where you are. Nobody is going to just hand you a ticket to success in Hollywood. Even if you grew up in Disneyland, that's no guarantee that you'll become the next great writer, musician, animator or creator. For artists all over the world, there will always be uncertainty about the future. A lot of us are charging our own roads to the future where there is no clear career track. I mean, if there was, I'm sure a lot of us would have college degrees in B.A. Rock Star, right?

We pursue art and our creative endeavors not because it's easy or it's a clear path to a financially secure future. It's because we love it, and that's why we call it our passion. And as with the greatest of loves, it sometimes hurts. You probably remember falling in love with your art, the moment you experienced it and thought, "I would love to be able to do that for the rest of my life." And you might have already experienced the heartbreak when your art is rejected or criticized, or even the pain of falling flat on your face in outright failure. If you haven't yet, just you wait. It comes for all of us. 

"Nobody's going to pay you to do that." They might be right. No matter where you are, no matter how cheap the bills are, they still need to get paid. Money still needs to be earned. Having this drilled into us from birth reminds us that we can't afford to be a starving artist. So to the elders and the culture that raised us, thank you for the gift of practicality, common sense and resilience.