Originally written in Chinese. The original Chinese text appears below.
Today is April 1, 2026, which means I have now been living as a freelance illustrator for exactly four months.
Before I officially began working, I went through a period of recovery and adjustment. During that time, the physical and mental exhaustion I had carried with me did not simply disappear. In fact, the uncertainty of the future made rest itself feel less restful.
For an adult without an independent income, it is difficult to truly relax. This has little to do with whether one has financial support or not. For me, it was more that I could not stop myself from worrying, even while resting, about how I would eventually become self-sufficient. At the same time, the fatigue from the previous stage of life had not fully faded. So that period was not an easy one emotionally.
Later, I gradually came to realize that perhaps only action can cover over anxiety. At some point, I began training myself to sit down at my desk again and return to drawing. It was not until December 2025 that I could say I had truly entered a working state.
Four months of freelance life may not sound like a long time, but I still feel I have so much to say about it.
These four months have been filled with both a strong sense of achievement and an equally strong sense of anxiety. I believe many freelance illustrators starting from scratch—as well as freelancers, independent creators, and even first-time entrepreneurs or investors—may recognize this feeling.
The anxiety comes from the fact that the time, energy, and effort keep increasing, yet there is still no visible fruit. And at the same time, what feels so contradictory is that my sense of achievement can also feel overwhelming, because I know the path I am walking, the effort I am making, and the thinking I am doing are all moving in the right direction. This split easily gives rise to a classic question: when the two seem out of sync, which matters more—the process, or the result?
Every weekday, I spend the daytime in my studio, working with my head down until five in the afternoon.
Inside this studio, there is no conversation, no client communication, no work handover—only myself. My only companions are my brushes, the music playing in the background, and the ideas moving through my mind. Sometimes strange images flash through my head: I am sitting in the studio, and the room suddenly becomes enormous, so large that I have to look up at my desk; then, just as suddenly, it becomes so small and cramped that I can barely breathe. At those moments, I realize that a kind of fear—something almost like the feeling of The Shining—has returned. This studio becomes my own Overlook Hotel. I can see time passing, yet I cannot offer myself a clear future. I do not even dare to say with certainty that this road is one worth looking forward to.
Sometimes I wonder: if one day I do become a commercially successful illustrator, if I am ever invited to speak at a school, and a room full of young illustrators at the beginning of their journey asks me how to deal with anxiety, what would I say? I do not know. When you step into the arena of a profession, when your work has to compete with hundreds or even thousands of others, how can anyone guarantee that it will stand out? I cannot guarantee that. “Just keep going, and there will be a good outcome.” Even this is hard for the me right now to believe.
Sometimes I try to comfort myself by thinking of creators who were eventually recognized, knowing that many of them also went through a long and difficult quiet season. Of course I hope that what I am experiencing now is only my own quiet season. Whenever I watch a sitcom and see a struggling, awkward little character move from a hard beginning toward a smoother life, I feel a deep emotional connection to that story. The beginning of that story really does feel a little like mine.
Although I have gone through countless competitions in life and have climbed out of the mud of failure more than once, I am still startled by this kind of emptiness—the emptiness of doing everything alone, with no one around.
I am doing the work. But I am also, truly, afraid.
I know that when I land my first important project, when I publish my first book, I will probably look back on this journal entry and think it was a little too pessimistic. I will probably feel that I once made things seem harder than they really were.
But for now, I still cannot fully sink into that lightness.
Since graduation, I have carried one simple hope in my heart: that many years from now, when I look back, I will see that none of the steps I took were wasted.
I still feel that way now.
I hope that when I look back on these difficult days in the future, I will find that all of this effort and persistence did, in the end, mean something.
自由职业的第四个月：关于焦虑、坚持与静默期
今天是2026年4月1号，也意味着我正式开始进入自由插画师生活已经整四个月了。
在正式开始工作之前，我经历过一段休整期。那段时间里，身体和精神上的疲惫并没有一下子消失，反而因为对未来的不确定感，休息这件事本身也变得不那么轻松。
一个成年人没有独立的经济来源，其实是很难真正放松的。这和有没有经济依靠没关系，我只是没有办法控制自己在放松的时候去焦虑将来我要如何自力更生。可与此同时，前一阶段积累下来的疲惫又没有完全消退，所以那段日子里，我的情绪并不是太轻松。
后来我渐渐意识到，或许只有行动才能覆盖焦虑。从某个时候开始，我重新训练自己坐回书桌前，重新开始画画。直到2025年12月，我才算真正进入了工作的状态。
四个月的自由职业生活看似不长，但是我想说的真的很多。
这四个月对我而言是充满成就感和焦虑感的日子。我相信所有冷启动的自由插画师，乃至自由职业者、独立制作人、初创投资者，都会和我一样感受。焦虑，因为投入和精力一直在增加，努力也未曾停歇，但始终没有看到果实。于此同时，很割裂的是成就感又很爆棚，因为觉得自己走的路、付出的努力和思考都是在正确的路径下。这很容易催生出那个经典的问题：过程和结果，到底应该看哪个？
每个工作日白天我都一如既往地呆在我的工作室里，埋头工作到下午五点。在这间工作室里，没有人对话，没有甲方沟通，没有工作对接，只有我自己，陪伴我的只有我的画笔、播放的音乐和脑海中的灵感。有时我的脑海会闪过一些画面，我坐在工作室里，工作室时而变得特别大，大到我需要仰望我的书桌；时而又变得特别小，逼仄得无法呼吸。每次这个时候，我都会意识到那种好似《闪灵》电影里的恐惧又来了，这间工作室就是我的眺望酒店，我看到了时间在流逝，但是我给不了自己一个准确的未来，我甚至不敢轻言这条路是值得期待的。
有的时候我会想，如果将来有一天我真的成为了有商业价值的插画师，有学校邀请我讲课，我面对着那些初出茅庐的预备役插画师们，当他们问我焦虑如何排解时我要如何回答？我不知道。当走在职业的竞技场里，当你的作品要和几百个人、几千个人竞争的时候，怎么保证它一定会出众呢？我无法保证。“尽管走下去吧，一定会有好结果的”？这样的话我都难以说服现阶段的我自己。
有的时候我会宽慰自己，那些后来出名的创作者也都经历过这样一段艰难的静默期。我当然希望现在经历的也只是我的静默期而已，每次当我看情景喜剧，一个落魄的、滑稽的小人物从开始的艰难走到最后的平坦，我会收获非常大的情感认同，这故事的开头确实很像我。
尽管从小到大我经历了无数次竞争，也无数次从失败的淤泥里爬起来继续战斗，但我仍然会被现在这种无人的空旷所惊吓。
我在想，我在做，但我也真的感到恐惧。
我知道，当我接到第一个重要项目，当我出版第一本书的时候，我一定会觉得这篇日志有点太悲观了，我一定会觉得曾经自己把问题想的太难了。可是目前的我就是无法享受那份轻盈。
从毕业开始，我心里一直有一个很朴素的愿望：希望很多年后再回头看时，会发现自己曾经走过的每一步都没有白费。
如今我仍然这样想。
希望当将来回头看这些艰难的日子时，会发现这些努力和坚持，终究都有它们存在的意义。