There are different types of tired. There’s the quiet tired that comes after an average day, because it’s late and you’ve watched enough television to dull your senses and calm the caffeine that daily pulses through your veins. There’s the noisy tired that stays with you all day, reminding you of your never-ending To Do list, taunting you with the minutia that interrupts and throws you off course. And there’s the tired that comes after a long day of good, hard work—work that you are proud of, work borne out of your own passion, eliciting a deep and restful slumber from which you wake with energy to bound out of bed, and ride forward to conquer the world again.

And then there’s a kind of tired I experienced for years. It wasn’t a physical exhaustion, but a mental one. It told me that I had gone astray, that I was on the wrong path, that something wasn’t quite right.

Folksinger Harry Chapin talked about good tired and bad tired. Bad tired comes from winning other people’s battles, following other people’s agendas and dreams, and at the end of the day, there is very little of you in there. Good tired comes after a day of fighting your own battles, chasing your own dreams, living your own days.

I was bad tired and running out of strength, or at least interest, to continue along the same course. Something had to change.

My design career began the way many do, I imagine. I burst out of college with an intense passion to become a noted designer with award-winning work for well-paying clients.I grew in my career, working alongside designers who supported, challenged, mentored and inspired me. I loved my co-workers and enjoyed design work, but I found that most of the projects had little to do with what I felt was important. Work felt off-balance and it just wasn’t as satisfying as I hoped.

From the beginning, I recognized the power of designers and illustrators. We could make others rich. We could convince consumers (and even ourselves) to buy the more attractive box. We could guide (or misguide) political choices. We could create desire, stir sympathies, alter moods and even start trends. But at the end of the day, we sometimes found that being on someone else’s team, helping them get the gold, felt a bit unbalanced.

I was hearing a lot about sustainability—environmental, economic, even agricultural sustainability—and it occurred to me that I needed to think about my own personal sustainability. What happens when I quit, retire, expire? Am I “nutrition” for the next generation? Will the world be a better place because I was here? I wanted to leave my fingerprint. But what could I do?

I determined that I needed my own Mission Statement, a guideline for my career path. It seemed so obvious, but it was a light-bulb moment that set me on a new journey. In examining what was important to me, and what I brought to the table, I decided I wanted to use my talent to help nonprofits. If I couldn’t cure a social ill, at least I could help get it noticed.

Through a mutual friend, I found a local nonprofit in need of a visual transfusion. They had a fundraising event coming up and needed a “look.” I was still, of course, working my day job, but I was content spending evenings imbuing visual delight in a dark and poorly-kerned world.

It was wonderful. I had found the balance I was seeking by helping them step up to look more professional. I was helping a worthy cause. But then my castle in the sky crumbled at my feet. My contact, who had been enthusiastically approving all my designs (without showing them to her superiors), met me the day the files were due, presumably for the hand-off. Without looking me in the eye, she shared the news: the board of directors didn’t like the direction and asked her to HIRE—yes, pay—someone else to start over. I was devastated.

My friend became our mediator and helped sort out the trouble, paving the path for lessons learned, creating guidelines to help others avoid missteps. He helped soothe an experience that might have stopped my efforts cold.

Soon after, I joined the local AIGA Board of Directors, citing that I wanted to use my skills to give back to the community. I was given the brand new position of Community Outreach Chair and told to create opportunities for other designers as well. I had the thrill and terror of a blank canvas before me.

My sour gratis design experience became kindling for my first event, titled Pro Bono: Why Do It & How to Avoid the Pitfalls. From the audience, a dozen joined me, and together we formed a committee, which I called Art with Heart. I led the meetings, discussing the problems that affected our city and how design, or designers, could have an effect. We eventually focused on “at-risk” and homeless children, as they were truly victims of circumstance.

We wanted to not only offer pro-bono work, utilizing the new guidelines, but also offer our time, leading the kids on artistic explorations, journeying past what others were offering. We researched local nonprofits that served this audience, pinpointing those that were underserved so that we could have a meaningful impact. As we listened to representatives speak to us, we found a consistent subtext: these children suffered from low self-esteem. Their problems stemmed from a variety of sources including absent or abusive authority figures, school bullies or gangs who preyed upon their situations, and dysfunctional or non-existent family structures.

As artists, we know that creativity is strong medicine. Who doesn’t remember sketching frustrations away, drawing horns on the evil math teacher pictured in the school newspaper, or aspiring to a new future in a fantasy composition of your amazing dream house? Even on the smallest level, creativity can alter moods. On the grandest level, it can change lives.