Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Crazy Enough

Honestly, sometimes I think I've gone completely nuts.

Right now, I've got very little income and a half dozen projects that may bring me more money but goodness only knows how long this will take.  Usually businesses take upwards of five years or more to really build to a comfortable means of income.

The real revelation comes when you realize that your stable means of income is now in a horrifically overcrowded job market.  Where once you thought your career choice you would settle on one career, one avenue, one talent or skillset, and that would be your lifetime career.  You would work for 40 years, retire comfortably, and set yourself up for the next generation to take care of you.

That is not the world we live in anymore.  There is no secure job path for the entire course of your working life (with the unfortunate exception of politicians.)  Where once I dreamed of being an artist and writer, but put that aside thinking training for primarily teaching was the best idea, now I see that the artist and writer were actually the better dreams all along.

My arguments when I was younger always ended up with me not wanting to be a starving artist.  Guess what? Today's job market has created starving teachers.  So the once solid job market we had several years ago doesn't exist anymore.  When people at the top of the field can't find work, they trickle down to lower positions they never would have settled for ten years ago just so they can make ends meet.  By the time you get to the newbies at the bottom, they are completely out of luck unless they happen to know someone and can manage to eke out something.

So my takeaway today? Go bold or go home.  Build your career around your skills, and figure out what works even if it isn't traditional.  There are very few avenues for a traditional life like that anymore, so you might as well go for the big win.  If you're going to struggle and not make much money, you might as well be doing the things you are good at and love doing.  Right?

3 comments:

  1. Amen! It's a level paying field in that there are no guarantees. Might as well do what lights you up from within.

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  2. So very true. I graduated with a dual bachelors degree in business and then went got my MBA and guess what that did nothing becasue the economy tanked. I was laid off from my job back in 2009 and it took me 10 months to find the trip that I am currently at with a huge paycut. This year I decided that I would do everything I could to make my dreams of a scrapbooking business come true. I still have my day job but I am working very hard at my night job :)

    Found you through UBC

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