^ Yeah, woot, I agree with him. I can understand a lot of your thoughts on freelancing, but sometimes it's hard to take you seriously when you say stuff like:
"i dont care about being creative or doing something meaningful. doing your own projects is cool but even that is something I could do without. I just wanna have enough money to retire. having to work for a living is so stupid"
I am not sure coming in to say that "working for a living is stupid" in a thread about freelancing contributes to the thread in any way. Unless you've got something to share about making a living without working? If you do, I'm sure most of us would be all ears.
Do you just want someone to come along and support you? Is it your contention that your government should have that responsibility (also noted that your calculations didn't include taxes)? You just want to have enough money to retire, you say; yet you are in your mid-20s, if I remember correctly.
Contrary to the beliefs of many on this forum, I actually don't believe men need much money to be happy. But I do believe men should have a vision, a dream, a purpose. Work. They'll be much happier if they do, anyhow, and studies show that people who stop working get depressed and unhealthy. So while working for others often fails to provide this (not always), I think trying to avoid work completely, both for others and yourself, is a bit misguided.
That aside, what kind of painless shortcut are you looking for, and more importantly, are you taking steps to make that happen or just venting about your frustration in life? Or perhaps I am just reading you wrong altogether?
Because to put this as mildly as I know how, this really comes across as an entitled attitude for a guy your age. Again, I may be misreading you.
I agree with this: "you always gotta ask yourself... if you had all the money in the world... would `you continue what you're doing now?"
This is a great question. To find out what you want to do in life.
To find out what you should be working on. Not so you can unearth some magical door that will allow work to no longer seem like work.
I'm also a bit unsure of your statement that nothing you're interested in can make money. It would be informative to hear what you're interested in; I'd be willing to bet there's one thing in there at least that
someone is making a very good living with. That person isn't just making a living at it because they like it, though; they're making a living at it because they're taking a risk it doesn't sound like you're willing to take. And as you said, "if you devote all your life to some thing with a huge potential for wealth then success is pretty much inevitable." I believe that's a very true statement and I think of it often myself.
But let's not forget that people who do such a thing often fail a lot along the way and work their asses off. And the rest of what you're saying doesn't strike me as the words of someone who is interested in devoting their life to anything anyhow.
Also, you mentioned gates, branson, buffet, jordan...
When Gates started, I doubt many people thought his passion was going to make him rich - and certainly not this rich. Buffet could have failed and lost everyone's money; in any case, he had to work for others and learn the ropes before he struck out on his own. Jordan was a basketball player - you know how many young athletes put their all into basketball and fail to make it? Branson's wealth started with his record company. That also could have failed - many record companies have. So passion doesn't necessarily equate to success.
And I'm sure all these people have had moments where they hated the work.
I'm not saying to not pursue your dreams - I actually would encourage the opposite. What I'm saying is that the idea that these people were pursuing a passion guaranteed to make them money is flawed - as is the idea that pursuing a passion means it's never a slog. They all took a very big risk, they all worked their ass off through the ups and downs, and that's something I encourage.
Freelancing often gets old because you're writing for clients, for instance. But professional authors also get burnt out on writing. Writers throughout history talk about how painful it is to sit down and get the writing done - for some it's all fun, but it's a love/hate relationship for many. One they wouldn't trade for anything.
That's just how work goes, even when you love what you're doing.
And then there's all the other stuff that comes with any job - an author may love writing but they may hate editing, or dealing with publishers, or signing books, or marketing. Just like you may love cooking a good meal but hate cleaning the pots afterwards.
I guarantee you Jordan gets tired of basketball courts sometimes. He's not a person who somehow doesn't have to work at what he wants or even that is somehow naturally gifted - Jordan has succeeded because he works harder at it than anyone else. Jordan has succeeded because he works
in spite of the grind and not because the grind does not exist for him.
Look, I'm also not saying that all this means you should put these energies into freelancing, of all things, though it's still a foot in the door and a liberating way to make a living your way if you need it. Lots of guys who do it may not love it but they still won't trade it for a dayjob no matter what.
But why not go devote yourself to something instead of torturing yourself with freelance? If it's not for you, it's not for you. It's not really for me anymore either and that's why I'm okay at the moment with taking a big cut in pay to focus on my own books. Before I was taking the cut in pay anyhow just because it didn't excite me enough to work harder at it, so in some ways we're in the same boat.
I've even flirted with the idea of getting a bartending job so I can put all my creativity into my books and just live on a small paycheck for a while - because my books are more important to me than anything else.
But this whole idea of not working for a living is beyond me. You have to at least be willing to sacrifice
something to get what you want, or chances are you're never going to get it. If you're super clever, there's a chance you'll "hack the system," I suppose, but unless you're a genius in some regard or willing to put in the time to master something, you're just out there scrambling around hoping you come across a magic pill to success, and well, we all know how that goes.
Creating a 6 figure income takes hard work (as does living off 20K a year when you have more at your disposal). I think most guys who just spend their time looking for the easiest, least painful shortcut to a 6 figure income aren't going to get very close. The oil industry might be a good choice for you. It's not completely work-free, in any sense of the notion, but at least you can get a healthy amount of time off every year and can get your freedom from work.
If you can live on very little, there are also ways to coast through life without putting out much effort, but I won't get into them here because this is a thread about working not at thread about coasting through life. And even if you were just going to be a hippy living on some island in the middle of nowhere, the ability to pull in a few hundred bucks a week with just a day or two of effort via freelancing wouldn't be a bad skill to have. Most hippies I've met would love that sort of thing (they're just not interested once you start mentioning the effort it takes to get it haha).
You could also just do the coasting thing while you work on your own projects, but you already said you're not really interested in working on your own projects.
I'm actually all for smart ways to work less. Our society most definitely overdoes it with the amount of time the average joe has to put in to get by (maybe that's what you were getting at). But, Man, you've got be willing to put in something resembling effort if you have this idea of making a cool million in 10 years and retiring.
Anyways, I'm cool with you making suggestions about other ways to make money in this thread (not that it's exactly my thread anyways), but I think all of us would welcome the contribution more if you offered some alternatives instead of just saying you don't want to have to do any work to make a living.
Maybe we could start a thread about how having to work for a living is shit and we all wish we didn't have to do it; something tells me that thread wouldn't be very well received by the forum though. haha Look, you are a smart guy, and if you weren't I wouldn't bother with this long post on this, so I'm not trying to clown on you. But I'm not really sure where you're going with that input...
Also, not that I'm some type of expert on become elite at something, but I encourage you to check out
Mastery by Robert Greene for a more realistic idea of what gets people like Jordan, Buffet, and Gates where they are in life. I would venture that the success these people have seen is more about the attitude they take to their work than it is what they've chosen to work on.
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