Living Without a Net: An Odyssey into Self-Employment: Do Less, Have Faith

I have a strange Wednesday ritual of picking up one of the free San Francisco papers, SF Weekly, and starting it from the end, where the 1-900 numbers and consort services place ads. Amidst the lace and silicone is Rob Brezny's Free Will Astrology column, which I've read since happening upon it in the Village Voice years ago. I have no idea if Brezny's advice aligns with real astrological happenings, but I still read the column religiously because he offers such good advice.

This week, my horoscope (Gemini) read, in regards to my life in 2006:

"Many Geminis fit the description of a class of people that Wired Magazine calls 'yeppies,' or 'young, experimenting perfection seekers.' Overwhelmed by a profusion of conflicting opportunities, they are restless and insatiable. They treat life 'as an exercise in comparison shopping, refusing to commit for fear of missing a better offer.' ...

...I urge you to try out some very different attitudes: a tolerance for imperfection, a respect for limits, an appreciation of the value of peace of mind, and a willingness to concentrate on just two or three possibilities instead of 17."

It sounded like great advice. "Agreed," I thought. So then why was I feeling nervous? Perhaps it was because I've suspected that, as 2005 was my year of exploring my options, 2006 will have to be my year of whittling them down. And I'm a bad whittler.

I have a running list of priorities that get adjusted from time to time. A long time ago I read that a person must focus on no more than three things at one time, which led to a whole bevy of questions: Do you mean three work-related things? Or just three things? If the latter was the case then I'm screwed. I can't write a book, work on BlogHer, blog, plant an herb garden, take cooking lessons, AND get fit. But if I could subcategorize and then fit three things into each category then I could do everything.

This thinking has led to something close to the 17 items that Brezny mentions in his column. That's probably close to the number of freelance projects I juggled last year. But, from my more contemplative, exhausted perspective, and one year into my soloing, I've learned that just as the soloist must learn to see opportunity, she must learn to commit to opportunity.

As a soloist I'm like a perennially wandering single, dancing from date to date, eyeing each guy critically and asking, so Dude, are YOU the one? Are you the one that will provide me with security and a passion-filled life? Being the realist, I know that one gig won't likely provide me with everything, but there comes a time in everyone's career and love life (I truly hope) when you get sick of always being in pursuit, of playing the field. You take stock of all of the dates you've had recently and notice that a few made you feel better than others. Some dates made you feel more valued. Some you felt compelled to do more for than just show up. Some you wanted to sparkle. Some you just wanted to finish, with as minimal an effort as possible. Some you wanted to end yesterday. And some carried with them a glimpse of what you are supposed to do, financially and spiritually, for the rest of your working life.

I was grateful for each opportunity that I had this year. Elisa Camahort helped me put Year 1 in perspective when she said that most soloists earn less their first year out than they did when they were working for someone else full-time. I think of all the amazing projects I did, and considering most of them were not for pay I'm really pleased that I managed to pay all of my bills.

Since my corporate days I've adopted a new way of keeping score. I used to consider it a failure not to get a steadily increasing salary from year to year. Now, I look at what I need to make to pay bills and save for the future, and I line that up with the jobs I needed to take vs the jobs I wanted to take. Failure would be having to have taken mostly projects that I didn't care to do, but that paid well. Success would be making my bills while having enjoyed myself most or all of the time.

Admittedly, in 2005, this balance was hard to come by. Like many soloists I initially took all paying projects that came my way in order to stockpile money and buy myself the luxury of non-paying-but-meaningful projects later. But this is a rat hole; one mediocre project done adequately becomes another one, and next thing you know, you've booked up all of your time on uninspiring projects. I found that I had to pull back on projects like these to make time for the better projects, or projects that didn't pay, but that I needed to complete in order to invest in more meaningful work later. In some cases I tried to do it all, which impinged on the quality of life that I griped about not having when I was in a full-time corporate job. 

So, in my quest for perfection, as we Yeppies always seem so desperate to find for ourselves, I've determined that the missing factor is not something that can be found in the mix of opportunities that come my way, but in my perspective of the ones I have. My word for 2006 is not a word of breadth but of depth: FAITH. Instead of focusing on always having projects in the hopper, I will stick with the two or three projects that I love doing. Some people might think this is a no-brainer. But Yeppies actually need to learn to determine what it is that they love to do, versus what they do for the sake of maintaining choices.

So then, it's about commitment, then. While there are no rings on these fingers, consider me spoken for.

 

Comments

[Marilyn]

Great post, Jory. I understand the hesitation about whittling. It's why I still freeze when someone asks, "But what do you REALLY want to do?" It always feels like I'm supposed to pick ONE THING...and I simply can't. I've tried to grow comfortable with a 'little of this, little of that' approach. But you're right...one really needs to laser-in on just a few things to really MOVE ahead.

[Steve Sherlock]

Jory, I agree... good luck... committment to an ideal, not committed to an asylum.

spoken for, as in "bespoke" (http://www.englishcut.com/archives/000004.html)

so you could be a bespoke blogger!

[Jennifer Warwick]

Yeppie. My heart both lifts and sinks that there are enough of us to be considered a group. What a thoughtful post...you've knocked so may things loose in my head that I may have to do a riff on it in my blog...after all, I'm the girl who decided to take swimming lessons at age 35, and within 3 months had thousands of dollars in scuba gear and was multiply certified at advanced levels...and then walked away because I got really cold diving for lobster - at night - in October.

But not all the way away. I sold most of the gear on eBay, but I still have a 5 mil wetsuit and hood collecting dust in the garage...I guess just in case this global warming thing really takes off...

[miffy]

Hi Jury...have read some of the books on your site...check out, if you haven't
THE FOUR AGREEMENTS - RUIZ and a great book called
FROM ROCKS TO CLOUDS -not sure about auther...menapausal at the moment.
love to you
xo

[kirsten]

My horoscope fav is www.cainer.com - read what it says about Gemini's for the coming year. Eerie!