Content marketing and a catharsis
By: Joan Amato
Tags: Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Life Lessons, Mental Health, Creativity

Content marketing and a catharsis

Yes, dear, fun is allowed at work

Creativity and joy make part of my life. I love to dance and I`ve been rediscovering myself in the digital marketing world. These are two ways I can express freely my creativity and, of course, they result in joy. Sometimes it is faced as a threat. I don’t know to whom or why. But if you go to work with a big smile on your face, or if you have a polite sense of humor and you are not ashamed of it, people don’t take you seriously. When did things go wrong to the point where you have to feel miserable to be seen as a trustworthy professional?

“I wanna be allowed to be fun, to curse and still be recognized as a good professional who takes the job very seriously even when smiling.”

This year represents the beginning of a catharsis to me. After 23 years, I came back to dance and, coincidentally, I started to study digital marketing. So, my creativity is reaching acute high levels, I walk around smiling for nothing, thinking about dance moves and everything is a reason for me to sit down and start to write. Until now, content marketing has been the “belle of the ball” to me and nothing more natural than starting to follow the big guys and girls.

The thing is: I identify with something now. Last weekend, the CMA Live 2017 happened in Edinburgh, one of my favorite places in the world. I wish I could be there. Lots of tweets, but this one was my “self-help book moment”:

I love the mismatch between face and body non verbal language, don’t you?

It represents everything I just wrote above! And I just couldn’t help thinking about what I’ve been through in my original working area. Yes, how many “good critics” I’ve heard because I was “too happy”. OH, MY GOD (intentional caps lock)! The best thing you can take to a person into a hospital is a smile, a word of understanding, 5 minutes of small talk. How much pain is that human being feeling? Do I have to speak with a patient so seriously that he or she may feel worse? Do I have to be grouchy? Oh, no, sir, I refuse myself to be this douchebag-suit-guy.

Of course, that wasn’t the only “good critic” I’ve received. The most outrageous one is about cursing. Back to CMA Live, Erika Napoletano: never met, always loved. A woman who curses. I wish I have heard about her about ten years ago, when I moved to another city where I worked as a trauma surgeon.

Anne said it all. Less than 140 characters.

Man, think about pressure! Yes, it is trauma surgery. Adrenaline running high. The solution to keep my sanity: I cursed. And I cursed a lot! Not to anyone, to myself talking low, inside the operating room. It was a relief beyond imagination. Fuck, shit, motherfucker brought me to peace several times, especially when gut pieces were floating inside an open belly full of blood.

A dear colleague came to me and said “you shouldn’t say dirty words, it is nasty, you are a doctor and a female”. I am sure I made that “seriously, bitch” face. And before you think different, I heard that from a WOMAN! I swear to God, if I didn’t turn my back and ignore her, I was pretty sure the next advice would be “you are a woman, you are single, you will never get a husband talking like that”. Say what?

That is why the catharsis took place. When I compare events like these in my past working life with the possibility to develop a side of me that I love so much, the undeniable statement pops: I am too creative to keep working as a physician only. I have to squeeze myself to fit into Medicine. I wanna be allowed to be fun, to curse and still be recognized as a good professional who takes the job very seriously even when smiling. I don’t want to be punished for act human.

As RuPaul always says “If you don’t love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love somebody else?”. If you are stuck somewhere in your life where the prerogative to keep going is “don’t be you”, maybe you are about to reach this catharsis point I am in. Not everyday is gonna be the happiest, I am not naive to think or ask that. Even when we love what we do, sometimes it is gonna suck! You’ve gotta respect the dress code, you’ve gotta respect the company policy, but you’ve also gotta have space to bring the best in you, even if it is a little outside the curve and still be respected for it.

Nobody tells us how life is gonna be, specifically in work, an important part of it. But we discover ways to make it better even it means we have to find the courage to sashay away. “Can I get an Amen up in here?”