The idea that a job defines who you are belongs to another era. Today, people live multiple lives. Work and passion now share the same rhythm. One feeds the other. Across Europe, 62 percent of workers already have or are planning a second job. Nearly 60 percent dedicate between five and twenty hours a week to it. These numbers show a clear change. People are not only working to earn money. They are working to build a fuller, more creative identity.
This shift is especially strong in the creative world. Here, titles change often, and energy moves freely. The 9 to 5 brings rhythm and structure. The 5 to 9 brings freedom and expression. Together, they create balance.
To understand this better, we partnered with Eastpak, a brand that has always supported people who move through life with purpose. Together, we explored how routine and creativity coexist. Instead of focusing on polished stories, we turned to our community. We met two people in Milan, Sarah and Luc, who live this balance every day.
Sarah is a licensed clinical psychologist who also sings and acts. She studied psychology in Florence and Bologna, worked in a psychiatric hospital in Milan, and is now building her own practice while preparing to specialize in psychotherapy. “I’ve always seen psychology as something close to creativity,” she told us. “It helps you understand and express human experience.” Her workdays are structured around consultations, studying, and creating mental health content online.
When her workday ends, she steps into another world, theatre and music. “My grandmother introduced me to musicals when I was little. The Phantom of the Opera changed my life”, she said. “Theater is therapeutic for me. It helps me release emotions I can’t express in daily life.” At night, her Milan apartment becomes her studio. She rehearses scenes, sings, and records self-tapes. “Creativity came first,” she said. “Psychology came later as a deeper need to understand myself and others. They’re connected.”
We asked Sarah how she connects her two worlds.
Do psychology and performance ever meet?
“Always. Psychology gives me tools to explore emotions, and theater gives me space to express them. They complete each other. One helps me understand, the other helps me let go.”
What do you want people to feel when they see your work?
“I want people to feel my energy, my curiosity, and my truth. Whether I’m talking about mental health or performing, I want to be real. That’s my goal, to make people feel less alone.”
Luc’s story follows a different rhythm but shares the same duality. He works in IT consulting for global clients in banking and technology. His job is analytical, structured, and often intense. He manages projects that sit between finance and software, moving between systems, meetings, and strategy.
After work, he becomes someone else, or perhaps, more himself. Luc is a hip-hop dancer and teacher. Dance entered his life through family and sound. As a kid, he spent time in Paris with his relatives, where his cousin, a DJ, introduced him to hip-hop. “I started when I was ten,” he said. “One of my first memories is dancing for my relatives in Paris. I was obsessed with Michael Jackson, then discovered Tupac through my cousin.” From that moment, movement became his way of understanding the world.
When he moved to Milan, dance helped him find his rhythm in a new city. He joined a crew, started teaching, and built a community. “During the pandemic, I began hosting training sessions and jams every week”, he said.
We asked Luc how he navigates both sides of his life.
Today, Luc organizes events, teaches, and performs. He also writes poetry and is developing a festival that connects dance, identity, and culture. “Dance is everything”, he said. “It’s my anchor. It’s been with me through every stage of my life. My dance reflects what I live. It’s like breathing, or writing poetry.”
For Luc, the balance between his two worlds is natural. His day job gives him focus and stability. Dance gives him expression and purpose. Both are part of the same story, each making the other possible.
Sarah and Luc represent a generation that does not fit into one box. They show how people can live structured and creative lives at once. Their paths prove that purpose is no longer tied to a single role. The 9 to 5 offers stability. The 5 to 9 offers freedom. Together, they build a complete sense of self.
This is what Eastpak allowed us to explore, the real side of balance. Not as a campaign, but as a reflection of how people live today. It’s about movement, identity, and purpose. About people who move from screens to stages, from strategy to art, without changing who they are.
The creative scene thrives on this duality. The after-hours studio, the late-night rehearsal, the early-morning commute, they all belong to the same flow. The new generation designs its life around energy, not hierarchy. Routine and expression are no longer opposites. They are part of the same story.
Who you are at nine in the morning and who you become at nine in the evening are not different people. They are the same person, moving through time, carrying the same energy forward.
Staff
Casawi Magazine: based in Milan, we celebrate youth culture, creativity, and community across fashion, sports, music, art, design & more.
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