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| Actual cloud photo taken by actual person (me) . I left the power line in the corner so you'd know that. |
Springtime is marketing job season, and a gal's thoughts turn to seminars and snake oil and those vacation offers that come through on the office fax machine that pretend to be from your HR department. Hell, I AM the HR department, in an office of two. Yes, I work old style too.
Consider this my free lifestyle seminar, just for you, on how to get the lifestyle you want and earn the gluten-free love you deserve on $10 dollars a day.
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| for only $79. For 99 you get the ukelele |
A long time ago, I was an art major. I was a ceramics major. I worked with a lot of talented folks as teachers and fellow students. Of the many, the one who is making a living with his mud isn’t the one who was the most talented, or had the best eye. It was the guy who worked at it. He did the ten thousand hours before Gladwell thought of it.
His work is a little boring to look at, a little run of the mill. It is wonderful in the hand, well balanced and graceful. My guess is that he’s acquired one good design idea a decade, and lost the ones that didn’t work. He is a master potter now. 35 years later.
35 years of every day.
35 years of every day.
The problem with being self employed is the "every day" aspect; you are always at work. Making boundaries between work and home (note I did not say leisure) is virtually impossible now in the 24/7 international sales cycle. When the client is in Brisbane or London (and she is), you are up to Skype. Do I love that? No, especially when the other parent is also on a different crazy cycle. Who gets up with the kids in the morning? Why is the web guy living in Portugal? What time is it in Portugal? (I recommend World Clock. Lives on my task bar) Why did my sysop do that? Where is the sysop? Vancouver? Which one? Property taxes coming up. Baby needs a new pair of shoes; where can I buy shoes using bitcoin? And he’d like to borrow the car.
It’s always been all work. Those folks who put on those seminars about how to have the lifestyle you deserve - I’ve been one of them - they know what a profitable pack of lies that is. Selling bullshit is hard work; it should pay well.
If you are lucky, you will have work. And if you love to work, you are lucky. But you can make that luck for yourself if you can work at loving the person you see in your mirror every day. You should value the work that person does everyday.
But more importantly, you should put your love into it. I think you will find that love transforms the work you do.
Hey, and if you suck at it, you should do something else.
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This post is due to reading these articles, which are fine and interesting. I didn't say I agreed with them, I said they were interesting. And I love footnotes.
If you are lucky, you will have work. And if you love to work, you are lucky. But you can make that luck for yourself if you can work at loving the person you see in your mirror every day. You should value the work that person does everyday.
But more importantly, you should put your love into it. I think you will find that love transforms the work you do.
Hey, and if you suck at it, you should do something else.
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This post is due to reading these articles, which are fine and interesting. I didn't say I agreed with them, I said they were interesting. And I love footnotes.
That's a lovely cloud you caught there! You always make me smile but this is serious stuff and I think I might apply for a few jobs this week instead of dreaming of someday making it to 10 daily hours of doing what I love.
ReplyDeleteThere's gotta be a way you can work up to that ten hours a day thing. Something that you can kick over to someone else (kids like money. kids do chores for money. My bathrooms may not be beautiful, but the kid's learning on the job). I scaled my ambitions waaaaaay down, and I have stuff I make myself do once a day, once a week. So right now it's a glorified hobby. Won't be forever.
ReplyDeleteMake a plan. First item: don't give up.