At the end of last month, I was working full-time as an editor and videographer for a Maltese news organisation. When I first saw the job advertised, I was excited. Filming news and human interest stories around Malta, editing videos, learning more about what was happening on the island, it sounded fantastic.
I was entering my fifth month of travelling around Portugal with Sarah, staying three months longer than intended due to multiple cancelled flights, so our bank accounts were running low, and we could use the influx of steady income. So I applied. I went through two rounds of interviews to land the job. I negotiated a higher salary due to my experience. I flew back to Malta with full-time work guaranteed and the prospect of an exciting new experience and even new career.
But even before I began work the voice in the back of my head was asking ‘are you sure you want to do this?’ I wasn’t. And the result was an awkward conversation with the boss announcing my departure only two weeks into the job.
I felt guilty. I felt like I had led the employer on, wasted their time and my own, trying to do something I quickly learnt I could no longer do. The 9 to 5 life. Working for somebody else, working within the system, giving my best productivity and output to an employer rather than being my own boss.
And the thing is, the work wasn’t actually bad. I was editing videos, I was going out and filming. I had had plenty of worse full-time jobs and many were not even related to film and television: working security at a University, a delivery driver for a medical supplier, a telemarketer lining up leads for mortgage brokers, a stock picker in multiple warehouses and a container unloader too, even a croupier for an online gambling company. In fact, that was my last full-time job, working in the lucrative iGaming industry in Malta, a job I reluctantly did for nine months before resigning in April 2020 just as Covid hit and forced everyone home.
So here I was, working in a role I enjoy for a top organisation, earning good money, yet I felt dissatisfied. And I had barely even given the job a chance. But why? Why couldn’t I function in the rat race any longer after running on the wheel so many times in the past?
Well, after working on nothing but Nexus for over a year mixed with freelance film and editing gigs here and there, I was beginning to see some results for the efforts. Now don’t get me wrong, our income is still up and down, and without money brought in from freelancing jobs and stints of temporary office work from Sarah, we would not be able to pay our rent with only income from our films.
But at the start of 2021 our films were selling better, largely thanks to FilmHub landing all our features on multiple platforms, and the release of In Corpore on Amazon Prime. We were also releasing more courses about micro-budget and improvised filmmaking and seeing monthly income from Udemy and similar education platforms. I was convinced that if we just kept going with releasing films and educational content eventually we would make enough passive income per month to not even need to freelance, let alone consider a 9 to 5.
So taking this job felt like I was giving in too soon. Indeed, after work I would come home exhausted, plonk myself down on the coach and watch YouTube videos, have dinner, and then want to do nothing else but sleep or zone out in front of Netflix. It would be so difficult to rouse myself to work on Nexus at 8:30pm at night when my creativity wanted to sleep like the rest of me. Quickly, I would adapt and wake up earlier instead, 6am starts so I could get in an hour of editing on my own films before heading to work to edit for somebody else. Still my heart ached; I wanted to do more on Nexus every day, and each day I didn’t manage to get my own work done felt like a waste.
Only two weeks, and I was already bitter and miserable. Such a brief attempt to return to the rat race, but it was all I needed to confirm what I knew deep down. I cannot do anything else but filmmaking. My own films. It’s my life’s work. It’s what I would do even if I won the lottery. I would still show up every day and work on Nexus.
It reminds me of a Steve Jobs quote:
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”
As I get older those words resonate even more. You become conscious that life won’t last forever, and each day is a gift. So the idea of giving the majority of my days to working for somebody else makes little sense to me. It is money over happiness. Money over mental health and fulfilment. Money over backing your own dreams.
Now, I know I write this from a position of privilege. Sarah and I have no children. All our debts are paid. We are in position to pursue our ideal life and I know we are one of the lucky ones. In the past, in my twenties, broke, riddled with credit card and loan debt, I couldn’t say no to full-time work. But now, close to forty years old, I can. And I did.
I quit.
I still feel guilty. But I know I did what I needed to do. I backed myself and trusted that persistence will pay off in the long run. I already love what I do. Yes, it can still be a struggle. Yes we worry about money and the instability of life as a freelancer, as a filmmaker, isn’t going away anytime soon. But my two-week 9 to 5 trial just proved to myself there is nothing else I can do.
I love working on Nexus. And I need to make it work.
Written by Ivan Malekin