Having to implement a project you dislike is the worst. With merry ease, some creative director or executive outlines their vision and then leaves for a month of lunches while you are tasked with making it real. Now, alas, the all-gray interior must be designed, the loathsome video must be shot, the accursed app must be coded. You aren’t alone. Very few of us have genuine creative control over what we do. So, how to proceed? The traditional guidance is to muddle on. Character, and professionalism, after all, are defined by how well we perform in suboptimal situations. This type of advice traces its roots to Stoic philosophy. Stoics taught that character and virtue should be pursued with near-inhuman indifference to circumstance. Marcus Aurelius, a Stoic and Roman emperor, lived by this rule: “No matter what This story is from Kinfolk Issue Forty-Five Buy Now Related Stories Arts & Culture Issue 47 Alice Sheppard On dance as a channel to commune with the body—even when it hurts. Arts & Culture Issue 47 Dr. Woo Meet the tattoo artist who's inked LA. Arts & Culture Issue 47 Walt Odets The author and clinical psychologist on why self-acceptance is the key to a gay man's well-being. Arts & Culture Fashion Issue 47 A Picture of Health Xiaopeng Yuan photographs the world’s weirdest wellness cures. Arts & Culture Issue 47 Chani Nicholas and Sonya Passi Inside the astrology company on a mission to prove workplace well-being is more than a corporate tagline. Arts & Culture Issue 47 Julia Bainbridge On the life-enhancing potential of not drinking alcohol.
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