Dreams of a Job Gone By
General Freelancing March 7th, 2008When you get one of those full time jobs that freelancers, i.e. creative consultants dread, your dreams of a freelance career get put in the back seat. Sometimes they even make it to the trunk. However, is it possible to have a career and freelance?
For the past several months I have juggled a full time career in the field that I freelance in. In this form, I get the best of both worlds with a steady paycheck creating websites and other materials while going home at night and working on other client’s projects. I feel as though I am freelancing all the time because I go to the office for one and home for the other, yet I am creating for someone at both jobs. The great thing about the full time job is that my creative freedom is very open. I would say more so than my freelance client’s. The only trouble is there aren’t enough hours in the day. Can you be happy with a steady paycheck and extra freelancing on the side? Or is it all too much at the end of they day?
Busy Busy
To be extra busy is to be my current life right now. Constantly creating and having a demand to find constant inspiration is sometimes overwhelming. I sit at home and work, and I sit at work and work all the while feeling the creative juices flow and stagger. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to run just a freelance business sans the steady paycheck and health benefits. Sometimes I dream of a wall with Multi-Designs, LLC painted above my office desk with an even bigger version outside the building I so luckily can afford. But then is this all wishful thinking? The steady pay and extra change isn’t bad when I can create for both worlds and in the end feel as though the reason I work has been successful each day.
What are some of your thoughts out there? For those that work both jobs or one or the other, what is your ideal dream job that you would like to have? Are you there yet?
If I ever find a way (in my daydreams it seems to revolve around the topic of anonymous benefactors) I would spend my days creating music, and designing building custom vehicles. As it is, my current job isn’t exactly either. And the time I spend at home seems insufficient to fully pursue either. But I’ve come to realize that its more a question of focus than of time, and I need to better utilize the time I have before I’d really know what to do with more. My job is teaching me management skills that I believe will prove useful in running my own business someday, as well as manufacturing/production processes that can be applied to my fields of interest. I’m also volunteering my time in my church’s music program. While channeling my musical energies into someone else’s creative vision, it is keeping my musical soul stirred, helping me to hone my skills, and connecting me with other people who’s experience can be a resource. I just need to start putting the pieces together.
Excellent Michael. Focus is very true. We all have the same amount of time, how you use it is mostly up to you. At least you are getting a little bit of what you love mixed with a full time job that helps you in areas you can always use. Everything is never 100%. All you can do is get the best out of what you have and when the time is right, move on to the next new adventure. Thanks for the comment!