Regenerative Self Employment

The character Lawrence of Arabia answered, about his cigarette lighting trick, “The trick is not minding if it hurts.”

See if this fits for you: The trick to an excellent career is to not care if it makes you much money. We have to make a living, sure. But once you have sufficient for your basic needs, are you going to do what you love or what you think will be accepted and well paid? Sometimes that can be the same thing, but for most of us, not so much. A lot of influencers are saying that they gained their success not by grinding, manipulation, or tricky new online marketing, but by a genuine impulse to do their thing and put it out to the world for free or a fair price. I’ll grant you that there are some who hustle their way up by making that the focus of their lives. Spoiler alert: If it’s not from the heart, they’re never happy with their apparent success. The glee of the win is short-lived. The honest ones have admitted it, and the others, you can see it in the tabloids or in their lives if you’re anywhere close to them. It’s more common that a true artist, inspired, as George Lucas was by a near death experience, lets their true success “get to their head” then focuses on selling plastic figurines. I don’t care how much money you make. Be a kazillionaire if that’s where your talents lead you; just don’t be a sell-out. From her palliative care work, Bonnie Ware reported that the most common regret of the dying was, “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”