Where the money comes from

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I secretly read a few blogs about happiness and finding your life’s purpose and living creatively and so on. (Why secretly? I don’t know - I get into that whole search for your creative self every once in a while, and then it begins to irritate me that people think making spreadsheets about their level of happiness is going to improve their life. Should happiness be a bloody by-product, and not the final goal?) Anyway, one thing that bugs me about so many of these sites is their position that the source of happiness, or finding a source of income that satisfies your creative urges, is working for yourself and owning your own business. (For many, this seems to mean making a living from blogging, and sometimes making a living from blogging about blogging. Which I frankly think sounds completely insane.) I think it’s crazy that apparently the only way you can find a job that will fully satisfy your individual unique self and fulfil your life’s purpose (after you’ve done this simple quiz to define your life’s purpose in one sentence) is not to work for someone else. After all, the vast majority of the population works for someone else. We can’t all have quirky little businesses, or blog about blogging.

I love working for someone else. One of the reasons I don’t want to be a barrister (apart my general verbal incoherence) is the horrible thought of essentially working for yourself, finding new work, chasing to have your fees paid - ergh. It delights me that someone else responsible for paying me every fortnight, and figuring out where the work is coming from (although I do a little bit of work in this direction, as referrals tend to depend on your personal rapport with your clients). There’s the social aspect of working in an office with other people, and not being their boss. Hell, even the irritating aspects can be fun, or at least funny. I like coming to an office during the day, and the structure it lends to the working day - there’s no way I would be productive working from home on a regular basis. I like wearing business clothes, I like having lunch hours, I like going to work events. One of the things I loved about finishing University and starting work was that I had regular hours, and I no longer spent my evenings working on assignments, or studying. All the time after work was mine, to do with as I liked, with the money I was earning! It was terribly exciting. I would go mad if I was sitting at home by myself working away at something I used to think was my passion, but have realised that now I have to do it all the time because it’s my source of income, it’s a little less joyful than before.

To be fair, I’m sure there are people who do have passions they want to make their life’s work, and who love working on and developing their photography or craft or love of bush regeneration (hi Mum!), and enjoy creating a business out of those passions. And it’s wonderful that there are lots of interesting and unique small businesses around doing their thing, and I should really try and support more of them. But I often see people commenting or writing online saying that they feel so feel so bored and stifled in their office job, and they’re trying to figure out what they would love to do. And often the advice given to them is, “What’s your passion? OK, make it into a business!” And I think that sometimes that’s the wrong advice. God, there’s a hell of a lot of different offices around. If you work in an administrative position, there are many many different types of businesses you can work for, some of which will pique your interest more than others. Go and work in a criminal law firm, or for an advertising company, or a salmon farm. Shop around, especially when you’re young. And then take your photographs or write your novel after work, and on the weekends - you know, your free time, when you’re supposed to be doing all the things you love. Don’t feel the need to make all your hobbies into a business, because you have to really love something with all your heart and soul to still enjoy it when you’re trying to figure out how to market it to people.

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