Breaking Free

Hate your job? You are not alone.

I have been self employed most of my life. However, I have also been employed for brief periods of time, especially when I was younger and also in between my entrepreneurial attempts.

I disliked almost every job I ever had. It was not about the money; with my skills I actually could have earned more working for bigger companies. Nor was it necessarily freedom; I could mostly write my own ticket wherever I worked.

But what I couldn’t do was steer my destiny. Somebody else made the decisions about the direction the company would go and I had to follow. It’s not that I could make better decisions; I probably could not. That wasn’t the point: succeed or fail, I wanted it to be by my own choices, my own path.

That is primarily why I have worked for myself. Not for money, not for power, but to steer my own course.

That, and because I never chased money. I chased happiness. People get that all confused. Yes, they want happiness but they think that comes from things that cost money. It doesn’t. Happiness comes from health and friends and family and from within.

I was not happy working for other people. I was sometimes filled with futile anger. I know the despair. The waking up in the morning and feeling so close to shucking it all and walking…