working at an ad agency proved alienating, she said, because of the way “the work mimics art.”

But I’ve realized that the people that I respect the most, the people who are doing great things, are people who care so much about what they do that they can’t stop. They are not unhealthy. There are those people who are unhealthy, but I’m talking about the people that care so much about what they do, that they go out of their way to have coffee and do interview projects [like now]. They care. They are not working too hard. They care about quality. I realized that this person was not recognizing the difference between someone who is a perfectionist and someone who deeply cares about quality. I think I have a bit of the perfectionist thing and that needs to go, but it can be an endearing quality. I just deeply care and I love that. What is nourishing about the world to me is that I love what I do. It took me a few years to realize that if I’m a healthy person and everything is in balance, I don’t need to curb that. Everything is just in balance. So that person, she tried to regulate me through this advice she gave me. But then I ended up reversing it, which I’m really happy about.