Self-Employment – Page 8

May 29, 2014General Life Whatnot Self-Employment Writing

Sometimes it just works out

A friend of mine gave me a really lovely plant about a year ago. Unlike many plants I’ve owned, I watered it, and it didn’t die. Quite the opposite. It grew. I didn’t realize quite how much until I was moving into a new location recently, and one big, long branch of the plant, which had grown against the window, broke right off when I pulled it away from its support. Half the plant was gone. The flowering half.

Dammit. Even the plants I think I’m not killing, I end up killing. I was about to throw the branch away when I thought, “What can it hurt to stick the stump of this branch into the dirt?”

May 19, 2014May 19, 2014Self-Employment Writing

Resetting my alarms to “play”

Like many dogs, Lois has a few internal alarm clocks. Unlike most dogs, none of Lois’s have anything to do with food. Lois is entirely driven by people and play.

May 9, 2014May 9, 2014Millennials Self-Employment Writing

The upside of always on

People love to hate connectivity. Crabbing about our “always on” culture is so commonplace, people even do it from their mobile phones. On social media.

This makes my skin crawl. As a freelance writer whose livelihood is only possible by being always on and the technology that allows it, it irks me personally, but there’s a larger reason why the complaint is wrongheaded.

Sure, having to answer an email on vacation or during dinner is annoying. It’s a small problem, and people do go overboard sometimes. But isn’t not being able to make dinner because you can’t leave the office worse? Or having to leave a vacation early to deal with a disaster?

Today, I am in Rockledge, Florida living out the evidence of why the ability to be always on gives me the ability to have a richer life. Doing what I do, it’s possible to decrease my work dramatically for a week, but it’s pretty much impossible to stop it altogether, unless I want to take a serious hit to my income. But here I am, able to spend a week with my grandmother, mom, aunt, uncle, sister, cousins and brand new nephew because I can work wherever I go.

Last night, I wrote a story at my aunt’s house. Today, I did an interview at Downtown Disney. Then I spent the rest of of the day enjoying my loved ones. I sent some emails from the car. Tomorrow I’ll work for about half the day and then snuggle with my nephew for the rest of the weekend.

If this is always on, I don’t ever want to be off.