Do you love your job?
It’s a simple question, and there are countless articles trying to answer it. But let me ask it differently. Do you genuinely enjoy what you do every day, or do you spend half your working hours daydreaming about being somewhere else? You might be surprised by how many people quietly choose the second option. So why am I writing about this? Because I spent eighteen years working in advertising agencies.
A few days after graduating from the Academy of Applied Arts, I found my first job. My original plan was simple: spend ten years learning everything I could, work with different clients, gain experience, and then decide what came next. Of course, life had other plans. Especially when you’re making plans in Serbia.
My ten-year plan somehow became an eighteen-year one. Looking back, it was an incredible journey. I never stopped loving design. But somewhere along the way, I realized I no longer loved the environment I was working in. That left me with a difficult question:
What was I willing to sacrifice—my health or the career I still cared about?
There had to be another way. To create meaningful work, you need more than a desk and a computer. You need the right environment. Not just an office, but people who inspire you, a creative process that allows ideas to grow, and enough time for those ideas to mature before they’re judged. Looking back, those last two were often missing. And eventually, I understood where my stress was coming from.
I was constantly working. But I wasn’t creating. Or at least, I wasn’t creating work that felt worth the energy I was investing. Even when I produced something I was genuinely proud of, it sometimes never reached the client. Decisions were made long before the work had a chance to speak for itself.
The salary was good. But there are things money simply can’t buy. The satisfaction of creating something meaningful. The joy of enjoying the process, not just surviving it.
A year ago, I made one of the biggest decisions of my career. I left the agency and started my own design studio. Not because I wanted to stop designing. Quite the opposite. Because I wanted to keep loving design for many years to come. I knew I needed a different way of working—one that valued not only the final result, but also the creative process itself. Looking back, it was the right decision. So let me ask you that question one more time.
Do you love your job?
If the answer is yes, hold on to it. Protect it. If the answer is no, don’t ignore that feeling forever. No salary is worth sacrificing your mental or physical health. Life is too short to spend every Monday morning wishing it were already Friday.
If you’re going to keep telling yourself: “I CAN do it”, make sure you’re saying it about something that still brings you joy.
For me… it’s just another play-day.