There are days when you wake up and ask yourself: What if I quit everything and start from scratch? It’s a thought that hammers the minds of those who, like us, live on this roller coaster called the freelance life. The Reality of Self-Employment: A Narrative of Life by MasTorrencito
And it’s not uncommon, you know? Every week I meet someone who tells me the same thing: «I’m going to send it all to hell». And I always respond to them: Don’t send it to hell. Close that stage, take a month or two, reflect and decide what you really want. Because saying it is easy, doing it is not so easy.
The freelance life is not idyllic, although from the outside it may seem so. Some people think that being your own boss is liberating, and sure, it has its magic, but also its burden. «I envy you,» some people say to me. And I always reply with a bitter smile: «Buy it! It’s all yours. Because to stop depending on a fixed salary to depend exclusively on yourself or on the economy of others is not a decision that is taken lightly.
The Hard Way to Go it Alone
Being a freelancer is juggling with fire: offers that you know will not make you a euro, but that at least «move money». Writing texts, publishing in networks, investing in Google Ads, paying SEO, hiring a community manager… and sometimes, without visible results. And meanwhile, the expenses don’t wait: the loan, the suppliers, the electricity bills, the investments… Everything arrives punctually, even if the income doesn’t.
Lowering prices to be competitive hurts, especially when it means paying commissions for platforms that bring you customers. It hurts, but at least you know that the business is still alive. It’s the eternal circle: you pay because there are clients, and you have clients because you pay. But for how long?
The Cold Silence of Empty Days
Do you know what the hardest part is? The empty days. Those days when no one comes in. Days when you’ve spent a bundle on heating to keep the house warm and cozy, you’ve cleaned every nook and cranny to be ready just in case, and nothing happens. Just silence. You do the math and realize that any given Tuesday, with -3 degrees outside, has only meant more expense, more investment, without a single income to justify it.
And when something goes wrong, it will never go wrong at the right time. The boiler won’t break on a Monday when the house is empty, nor will the car fail on a quiet Sunday. No. It will on a Friday afternoon, when you have customers at the door and no way to react. It’s Murphy’s law. It’s life itself, laughing out loud.
Reflection and Reality
From here, from this experience that many of us share, I tell you one thing: it is not as beautiful, nor as easy, nor as idyllic as it seems. And that’s good. Because life, the real life, is not a fairy tale. It is effort, struggle, falls and, if you are lucky, moments of satisfaction that justify all the sacrifice.
So, if one day you decide to start from scratch, do it. But do it with your eyes wide open. Think about it, plan it and, above all, do it because it’s what you really want, not because you’re running away from what you already have. Because if I’ve learned anything in this never-ending race, it’s that the key is not avoiding problems, but learning to live with them.
Life, in the end, is just that: a game of equilibrium where the only constant is change.
From MasTorrencito we wish you a good day and may your dogs be with you!!!!
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