Find What is Real to You and Stick to It!
By John Irvin
I get these questions so many times—every since I quit a corporate job and became a full-time author. I had to grab a pizza delivery part-time job to help with the bills, been there for two and a half years and it is running thin.
Society has trumped up these lies that if you don’t work a 9 to 5 or you don’t work 40 hours or more a week, you’re not working a real job. Society has us believing we must trade 8 to 12 or more hours every single day just to live from paycheck to paycheck.
Lies, lies, and more lies.
Corporatism in America has done a great job brainwashing us.
And our friends and family are on that bandwagon so it makes it that much more of a struggle to stand for what we are passionate about. Everyone has plenty of advice to give, but no support.
This traditional way does not work for me, it never has. I believed the lies for too many years. Now that I’m about to hit 30, my mindset is finally flipped. I no longer think the same way I did five years ago after wasting 5 years and over $40,000 on an education that—though fun for the most part—has no worth in this corporate-led economy we slave under.
I’m not angry, I hope I don’t sound like it. I’m just tired of people not getting it.
You don’t need a ‘real’ job—you were NOT made to live the same year 75 times and call it a life. You were NOT made to live from paycheck to paycheck, slaving at a job you either hate or simply have no love for—don’t call that a life.
Find what you love to do then find someone who needs that and get them to pay you.
Shed those lies of traditional corporatism and take the risk of freedom.
To those who love this traditional way, forgive me. It’s not for me.
Why do I write? Because I was born to be a writer—it just took me twenty-six years to realise it! I have no time to waste on a 40 plus job just because I need to pay bills the government or some other business decides they have authority to slap on me.
For now, I’m working a traditional 9 to 5 (or rather, in my case, 10am to 7 or 8pm), because I have to pay those bills, but I only give them part of my time, only what is necessary for the bills as well as paying for publishing my books. My friends and coworkers at the job understand this: it is a means to an end.
But I’m also finding the job is now threatening some friendships I’ve come to cherish. When I got written up for something stupid a couple days ago, I was a hairline away from putting in my two weeks not just because it stung (I’m not the kind of employee who gets written up often) but suddenly the job was a threat to this relationship.
Only logic and reason convinced me to hold on a little longer. My books are a source of income, but it’s still too small for freedom…yet.
Maybe I should split this into a two part series, it’s getting rather long. So I’m going to cut it short and I’ll continue on Wednesday.
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