Your relatives ask when you’re getting a “real job.” Your friends scroll past your articles to watch 15-second dance videos. Your bank account suggests you’d make more money collecting aluminum cans.

The world has a simple message for writers: quit now, while you still can.

I’ve been hearing this message since I was nineteen, working night shifts at a call center while taking morning classes. My father, a public transport jeepney driver, was recovering from a stroke. I needed me to keep earning. Writing felt selfish. Impractical. A luxury I couldn’t afford.

“Why waste time with stories when people need to eat?”

That’s what the world whispered. And for a while, I listened.

But here’s what I learned after almost six years of full-time writing: The world wants you to quit precisely because your voice matters.

The system is designed against you

Everything about our current moment discourages deep, slow creative work. ChatGPT can write a blog post in seconds. TikTok creators with zero writing experience are getting book deals. Video-first platforms reward fifteen-second attention spans over thousand-word essays.

Meanwhile, you’re spending weeks crafting something meaningful, only to watch it get buried under an avalanche of AI-generated content and viral trends.

The economics are brutal too. A decent freelance article pays what most people spend on coffee in a week. Literary journals offer “exposure” instead of rent money. Publishers care more about your “platform” than your actual words. You’re competing with machines that never get tired and algorithms that never doubt themselves.

It’s enough to make anyone quit.

I know writers who spend four hours creating content about writing for every hour they spend actually writing. They’re posting daily writing tips on LinkedIn. Tweeting about their writing routine. Sharing inspirational quotes on Instagram. Building email lists with lead magnets about productivity.