Lifestyle choices
Mar. 3rd, 2006 01:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valis2I have been babbling a lot about RL lately. So sorry, fandom people!
So I've been thinking about choices in occupations lately.
One of the things that my friend in WI has always said is that if you take a 9 to 5 job, you might have a good wage, etc., but if there is something you want in life you often have to be conservative with spending in order to purchase it. With sales, you just have to sell more.
I have always liked that about what I do. Yes, I have a day job where I punch a clock, but my other three occupations are all nebulous and amorphous. Really, they go as far as I push them to go. And this suits me. Honestly, there aren't many careers where you can sit and eat ice cream on a Tuesday while watching Making Da Band all day. I have weeks where I have very little to do, unless I want to do something. Conversely, I have weeks where I am involved in exhausting work overload. If I'm sick, it doesn't matter. I have to do the show or I'm out the money I paid, and the money I could possibly take in. Plus the element of chance is always present. I could take in nothing, after all.
About 90% of the time I'm satisfied. I love being the director of my own life, deciding where I'm going, what I'm doing, etc. I love finding new things to sell. I hate that I don't have health insurance, and I hate obnoxious people, but other than that, I'm pretty happy. I'm not locked into showing up to work each day and having to work with the same five nasty humans for ten years.
But then there are days when I read entries from people like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
trasenstine. Entries where they have a paid sick day at home, or nearly every weekend free to do what they want. It's so regular and measured and comfortable. And so much of me likes the things to stay the same, always. I hate change. But here I am in this extremely chaotic set of occupations! And I can't help but wonder about what life would be like if I were, say, a periodicals manager at a Borders.
So I've been thinking about choices in occupations lately.
One of the things that my friend in WI has always said is that if you take a 9 to 5 job, you might have a good wage, etc., but if there is something you want in life you often have to be conservative with spending in order to purchase it. With sales, you just have to sell more.
I have always liked that about what I do. Yes, I have a day job where I punch a clock, but my other three occupations are all nebulous and amorphous. Really, they go as far as I push them to go. And this suits me. Honestly, there aren't many careers where you can sit and eat ice cream on a Tuesday while watching Making Da Band all day. I have weeks where I have very little to do, unless I want to do something. Conversely, I have weeks where I am involved in exhausting work overload. If I'm sick, it doesn't matter. I have to do the show or I'm out the money I paid, and the money I could possibly take in. Plus the element of chance is always present. I could take in nothing, after all.
About 90% of the time I'm satisfied. I love being the director of my own life, deciding where I'm going, what I'm doing, etc. I love finding new things to sell. I hate that I don't have health insurance, and I hate obnoxious people, but other than that, I'm pretty happy. I'm not locked into showing up to work each day and having to work with the same five nasty humans for ten years.
But then there are days when I read entries from people like
trasenstine. Entries where they have a paid sick day at home, or nearly every weekend free to do what they want. It's so regular and measured and comfortable. And so much of me likes the things to stay the same, always. I hate change. But here I am in this extremely chaotic set of occupations! And I can't help but wonder about what life would be like if I were, say, a periodicals manager at a Borders.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-03 11:59 pm (UTC)I think the most important thing is that you like what you do. That you are happy with it for most of the time. Jobs can take an awful lot of our time, so we should at least do something we like and in the way we like it.
I know many people who are unhappy with their jobs and at the same time tell me that they would never take the risk of self employment, with its changing time schedules and income. Whereas I'd rather take the limited amount of money I'm making right now and refuse the 9 to 5 job. At least most of the time.
There are times, when I, too, wish for more security. But then I remember the jobs in which I had a boss and I know that I never want to go back to that kind of living if I can earn enough money with my own work. Maybe I will have to look out for a part-time job with a regular income, but I hope to manage without.
I love the freedom to chose with whom I work. I love the possibility of project, trying out new things. I love the freedom and the learning and also the fact that I sell something that is in many parts my own creation.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-04 12:18 am (UTC)I'm pretty prickly and pretty silly, and I'm sure I'm a bear to have as an employee. So I'm glad that I'm not working for strangers. At my day job I work for a woman who is pretty much a friend, and at my one sales occupation I am working for my very dear friends in WI, so it isn't really a problem.
You're right, security is such an issue. I do wish I had insurance! And the ability to just work, comfortably, and not have to run around and call people out of the blue and pick up 60 lb boxes all the time. Still, it's what has kept me afloat, and it could pay off more in the future.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-04 12:43 am (UTC)Oh yes! *laughs* I can imagine. I sometimes wish for the colleague whom I can ask for help when I carry all the equipment for my seminars or try to pack big, unwieldy papers into a neat little bundle on my living room floor.
I wish you all the best for the future!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-04 12:46 am (UTC)I'm so weird that I've read this sentence four times and I'm still trying to "decode" it to see if this means you're defriending me.
*laughs at idjit self*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-04 01:21 am (UTC)I simply wanted to wish you good luck with your business plans for the future.
And I will stay around to hear how your are doing!
hugs & &hearts &hearts &hearts
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-04 01:43 am (UTC)