We all laugh & cry in the same language

There are moments where I crave being chronically offline and others where I can’t stop being chronically online. There are moments where everything I scroll through feels like a strong source of inspiration and many moments that feel intimidating, daunting and a bit hopeless. I’ve recently been somewhere in between.

In trying to understand my habits, I’ve begun to understand the roller coaster of emotions that make me who I am. And what parts of that human experience make me a better creative.

As cheesy as it sounds, I keep coming back to the same quote: we all laugh and cry in the same language. When people feel something, they just feel it. It cuts across job titles, backgrounds, and whatever else we think separates us.

In the past year, my dad has started to lose his eyesight and quickly went from an extremely independent human to someone who needed help navigating the space between two steps on a staircase.

At the same time, I experienced getting my first Cannes Lion, creating Duolingo’s most viral campaign and getting a new job.

Isn’t life so cruel with how sometimes the highest moments can also be your lowest?

It made me think a lot about how much of our emotions drive our creativity and how much of them we’re allowed to bring to work.

Now before I go full kumbaya, here’s why this has been on my mind: experiencing negative emotions in the workplace is still considered weird, even though it’s just as strong a force as positive emotion. And, when the sad turns into mad...forget it.

We’re allowed to show approved emotions for approved timeframes. And no one really talks about that unspoken rule. That rule is detrimental to creativity.

For Christ’s sake, if we’re lucky, bereavement is five days.

But in creative work, emotion isn’t optional. It drives how obsessed we get with an idea, how hard we fight for it, how deep we go into flow, and ultimately, what we put into the world. When creating, I notoriously have creative highs and each were all attached to a strong emotion.

So what happens when that same emotion makes us angry at something a boss said? Or when feedback feels unfair? Or when another shitty thing happens at work? We’re told to smile through it. To be okay with it. And then still somehow “bring our full selves” to the creative. But only if the “full self” is positive.

It’s giving The Good Place.

Maybe it’s the Gen Z in me, but that feels fundamentally off. Sometimes vulnerability, the permission to be upset, cry, or take a breather, is what helps us actually move on and do better work. I’ve been pro work crash out for a while now. Sometimes it means tabling a tense discussion. Sometimes it means crying in a meeting (been there). And sometimes it just means saying “I’m upset at what you did and I will react this way” and as a boss, not providing detrimental consequences for natural human reaction.

People love to warn against “emotional decisions.” But the truth is, heart and emotion are what make the creative work sing. Logic may make it safe. Emotion makes it real.

So yeah, I think I want to start bringing the bad and the ugly too. It’s okay. It’s human. Taking the good with the bad isn’t just the kind thing to do, those are the parts of that human experience make me a better creative.