The Google doc is a rainbow of other people’s highlights, suggestions, and tracked changes. It’s impressive, really. Who knew someone could fit that many sentence fragments on one page…?

It can be deeply frustrating when a client makes significant edits to a piece of copy you’ve spent hours getting just right—particularly when their changes make the copy worse. Why did they hire you, a professional writer, if they were just going to write their own, rambling version of this content anyhow? What was the point?

If you’re anything like me, seeing a client or boss ruin your carefully worded copy can provoke a feeling of injustice, as if some unspoken code has been violated. Your inner knight errant charges forward, ready to defend the honor of your copy against the depredations of the tasteless corporate horde.

All of which is very exciting. But is it the most useful way for a copywriter to think about themselves? Is it a good idea to always be on crusade?

While bursts of passion can feel great in the moment, they are not a sustainable source of motivation in the writer’s life. Seeing every revision process as a battle between your “good” copy and the client’s “bad” copy will leave you feeling exhausted—not to mention demoralized when your best work is inevitably butchered by people who can’t write. 

There’s a better way for a copywriter to look at their work, and their relationship to it. Or at least a more pragmatic way. It won’t make you a hero in the fight for commercial artistic integrity…but it just might offer you some peace of mind.

The Problem with “Passion”

Over the last few centuries, some of us have gotten into the habit of searching for the meaning of life almost exclusively in our jobs. In the marketing world, this leads people to insist—often with a slightly too-wide smile—on their deep “passion” for helping people sell widgets and services. In meetings and at networking events, we carry ourselves like weirdly cheerful soldiers, fighting “campaigns” for the sanctified higher causes of our clients’ Growth, Market Share, and Brand Awareness (amen).

There’s just one problem with this approach to personal meaning-making. It doesn’t work.

Building off the work of groundbreaking psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, psychologist and cognitive scientist John Vervaeke argues that we often find ourselves confused when it comes to existential matters, like living a meaningful life—such that we look for transformation and self-transcendence in domains that can’t possibly provide these vital things. 

And so, for instance, we try desperately to believe that writing banner ads about chicken nuggets is somehow making a profound contribution to the human enterprise…all the while suspecting that we might have conned ourselves, if only to numb the very real pain of our own alienation.

When we weave our sense of purpose too tightly into our copy, every bad edit feels like a kick in the ribs. Such absurdity is a serious issue for the soldier-marketer, whose confused quest to find something real in our frequently nonsensical work culture leaves them anxious and dismayed. The copywriter who thinks of themself as a dedicated soldier fighting for a cause will soon despair.

The copywriter who thinks of themself as a mercenary, on the other hand, will be just fine.

Write Without Honor

For a copywriter, the mercenary, bounty hunter, or gun-for-hire is a better role model than the soldier totally committed to a single cause.

Like a mercenary, a copywriter benefits from a certain amount of non-attachment in relation to their work. Seeing the job as a job—rather than as a main creative outlet—allows them to handle office politics, client egos, and other obstacles with grace, rather than getting thrown by every setback. 

The copywriter who sees themself as a “hired pen” puts far less of themself into a given piece of marketing collateral. As a result, they don’t feel personally attacked when the client or creative director asks for silly changes. Where such changes pose a real problem for the effectiveness of the copy, such a copywriter can calmly and thoughtfully explain their point of view, and argue for a better approach. And if it turns out that the changes are, in fact, just a matter of personal taste, such a copywriter can let them go.

Obviously, this doesn’t mean allowing clients to publish any terrible piece of content, willy-nilly. But it does mean taking the job a little bit less seriously, and recognizing copywriting for what it is—the generally banal, but sometimes enjoyable task of arranging words on a page to help people sell their stuff. 

It is not a religion, a philosophy, or even a vocation. It’s a paycheck. And that’s okay. Because adding purpose to your life isn’t your job’s job. Or your creative director’s, or your CEO’s, or your client’s. 

Purpose and meaning aren’t perks that can be placed in a bullet list with a 401(k) and free lunch on Wednesdays. They are things that we co-create with our world—not inherent in one job or another. Recognizing this and accepting it allows us to be okay on those (many) days when our jobs are less than 100% fulfilling. When we aren’t so desperate to find meaning at our desks, we can begin to find more of it in the things we do outside of work. We can take client feedback in stride, and go easier on ourselves.

In a word—we can be cool.