For a creative, not for a farmer or a fisherman, it's early. It's before 7AM and I'm on the M31 trying to get to one of the places I'm working a couple of hours before everyone else.
I had this fanciful notion that at this hour, even heading crosstown on 57th Street, one of the world's most congested thoroughfares wouldn't be that bad. So I eschewed my usual $20 cab ride and paid a $2.50 bus fare. So far, my rosy-hued forecasts have been correct. Downtown traffic has been scant. If it stays this way, I should be at my desk just after 7:30.
The freelance world has become like a southeast Asian rainstorm. Right now, for me, touch wood, it's teeming with work. A wise man--yet somehow a friend of mine (I had done a good turn for his son) told me when I went freelance to never say "no" to a job. I'd say I have about a 95% success rate in heeding his advice.
There are, after all, some things money can't or shouldn't buy.
In any event, I am doing work I like, for people I like, for money I like.
I might miss the days, or reminisce about them, when I had a big office, a lofty title and some fairly unassailable client relationships. Those things were comfort.
But they can also be a trap.
I like the hyperawareness a freelancer must acquire. The speed, diplomacy and precision. A lot of people on Facebook paste homilies on their walls--or whatever they are--about embracing change and confronting fear.
Maybe everyone, every so often should go freelance for a year or so.
It's like my younger daughter says.
"Sometimes you've got to eat cement, and harden up."
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