Chronic Rants

My current goal is to not work full time in a 9-5 kind of job.  Sounds nice, right?  But I’m stuck on the making-it-happen part.

Health-wise, things have been getting worse over the last year.  Working full time is really not helping.  I don’t qualify for long term disability, and even if I did, it wouldn’t pay the bills.  I could get short term disability.  I’ve thought about that.  I’ve discussed it with my doctor and, to a limited extent, with my employer.  The thing is, it would only be a temporary solution.  It wouldn’t solve the problem.

So now my thinking goes like this: I could do some sort of free-lance consulting.  Then I could set my own hours, and keep things more flexible.  When I got sick, I’d lose money, but I wouldn’t have to deal with a boss.  Yeah, that’s a great idea.

Of course, until I get the free-lance consulting off the ground, until I’m earning some significant money, I have to keep my job.  That means that I’m trying to start a business in addition to working full time.  As you’ve probably guessed, this is not going well.  I get a lot of work done on the business once or twice a week, and nothing in between.  Still, I’m trying.  And I’m trying to stay positive, even with setbacks like what I had today.

Today was tough.  There was a networking event tonight.  I know the group hosting it, and so I know a lot about the people who were going to attend: the perfect demographic for my venture.  This was it, my first chance to really get clients!  And what happens?  Last night I started feeling the beginning of a downswing.  This morning, it was all I could do to get to work.  By the time I left work, all I could do was drag myself home.  Obviously, I had to skip the event.

But I know there will be more opportunities.  And until then, I’ll just keep working in slow, incremental steps.  Hopefully, one year from now I’ll be earning enough to at least scale my day job back to part time work.  And hopefully sometime down the road, I can quit my day job altogether.  Now, wouldn’t that be nice?

[And for those wondering about health insurance if I quit my day job, Massachusetts is the place to be.  I can sign up for the state-subsidized insurance and they can’t turn me away due to pre-existing conditions.  Yet another reason to put up with the snow.]