The article focuses on "millennials" where I think there is a great deal of potential for entrepreneurship. But it does require such a massive degree of grit, perseverance and resilience that the (mostly wrong) cliche will be that that is harder to find today. I don't think that's true - it's just vested in the wrong places and with shitty companies and a hegemony where you must "get" work "from" someone. I.e. "just get a job and work hard". That isn't always true or even right, yeah.
After working at one time 4 roles including a 6hr roundtrip commute, I was signed off work a bunch of times and eventually told to resign by my doctor in my mid 20s and I kind of foresaw a pattern that had only a few ways out that wasn't based pretty much on chance, or the economy. Unfortunately I grew up watching this happen as well.
So now I focus on doing just about everything I can to not recreate that life of 40+ years of unsustainable misery that would probably eventually kill me, owing to various complications, disability, genetics and more generally just how my industry (broadly design) works.
But also what tends to happen to people like me who hyperfocus on tasks, and tend to be good at doing multiple quite different sorts of things, and basically doing them too intensively to work in a normal 9-5 pattern. Without somehow managing to both do really high quality work and strawberry float everything up for the management. Part of this is accepting that most employers don't want high quality work, they just want it done so they can pass the baton along and get paid themselves i.e. clock in and out and make bank, as I call it. They're all on the same grind.
I had to basically just leave this completely as it was never going to be rewarded, indeed my compensation and misrepresentation of working rights at the time were a joke.
I went back to working for myself as I did at 14 years old because I wanted to do that kind of work for certain kinds of people (although I quit doing what I originally did - web design), I didn't need to go to someone to give me work, I basically created the demand and the work itself.
While I broadly work because I have to, I do set the standard so nobody can whine if I work too hard, or too long on something, or pursuing qualities they just don't see because they themselves have different values (which was a constant annoyance to the degree of total indifference on my part in other roles, which was the worst thing - I came close enough to just not caring any more which would have meant I lost what motivation I had in the first place before I even had a job). And my clients are really grateful about it and give me amazing reviews which just never happened in a corporate setting. Basically by setting up the value system and selling and thus earning according to those values I can remain true to myself and what I think is important, all I have to do is just find some people that agree with me.
That doesn't mean it's easy as I have plenty of issues with over and under-communicating and finding the right balance, say if write a 500 word consultation you'd think nobody wants to read, but then 70% of clients love it and 20% say nothing and 10% complain its too much, that's really hard to figure out. Again because I set the standard and you then have to decide who to listen to - there's nobody above you making those assessments.
So while work/life balance is generally within my control it swings all over the place because in many sense I have umpteen roles wrapped into the visage of whatever I describe my job as being. And sometimes I don't even realise I'm doing that job, which might be thinking about it in the middle of the night or on the weekend, or talking about it all the time "outside" of work (because the "place of work" is basically my own brain).
kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:Moggy wrote:kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:I use work as a means to do all my GRcade posting. If they block the site again (as it was for about 3 years straight) i'm strawberry floated.
I work from home and use my phone to post. The corporate overlords will never catch me now.
That is the pro strat I employ on the rare occasion I
do get to work from home. Feel like a king every time.
"I use work as a means to do all my GRcade posting." lol Just think how I feel.
I have one voluntary role and one proprietorship which is also technically a voluntary job. I've done other voluntary jobs too or art related things that kind of fall somewhere in between a portfolio career and a 3rd thing, let's just call that art/music practice if it doesn't sound too wanky.
They often argue with each other, but interacting with a community is important, obviously, as is more generally "showing up" in various spheres related to my work. So I slide off one job I chose for another job or activity I also chose and there is very little I do that isn't in some way if even tangentially related to my overall career path (and you might call that a vocation I suppose). I post on GRcade because I want to, enjoy it and need to but also it would be a strawberry floating joke if I never posted. I don't post out of obligation though, I'm obviously interested in everyone here and topics etc.
Neither really have any compensation in wage terms at present. Nor have any set hours. So yeah.
Maybe art or music etc are one of the last couple of vocations that you could actually consider more than just a job. It's very difficult to impossible to just clock in and out of something like that because so much of it is subconscious background, observational living sort of things. It's practically impossible to have a business idea or a design idea for example and then just force yourself not to think about it until x time for y duration.
Edit: I just remembered I literally have to run my own website blocking software in my workspace as well. It's weirdly paradoxical having to boss-mode yourself but it's also essential because of what I've just described.
Note: I very much dislike social media so Instagram is generally work-related and I only use Facebook for page updates and work-related groups. I also don't post on reddit, I can just wind up there sometimes because of search. Also have to block Wikipedia sometimes for the same reason.
It's extraordinarily difficult to manage work/life balance as a business owner, especially when there is often nobody else to answer to or for or to step in when things go wrong,for example I've been ill the past few days but have ben working anyway. Sometimes really all you can do is say, "Sorry I'm one person and I got ill, lol" until you can figure out some kind of contingency or replacement. It really is very difficult but not insurmountable.