Cubicle Required?

I’m at that point now; that point when I’ve collected my last severance check and the financial faucet has been turned off. I still have money coming in from a few other sources, but it won’t be enough to sustain us for very long.

I thought I would be further along with finding other opportunities. I wouldn’t trade the last few months for anything, though, as it has been an educational experience. I’ve learned a few things about myself.

1. Contrary to previous thinking, I can work from home. I thought the distractions of being at home would be too much for me and my productivity level would decrease. As it turns out, I work very well at home when I have work to do. I’ve been more productive than ever.
2. Working multiple jobs is tough. I thought it would be fun taking on ‘clients’ or ‘jobs,’ and for the most part it has been, but I find it difficult to give my full attention to any one project. I gravitate towards the work I prefer to do rather than the work I should be doing. For example, I really enjoy tech blogging, and I put a lot of time into putting out 3-5 articles a week, but it doesn’t pay much. Doing SEO work for a property manager pays decent, but I have found it’s not my favorite thing to do. So now I feel like I’m under-paid in one job, and over-paid in another. Go figure.
3. My best work comes from a combination of collaboration and cave time. I can’t stay in my cave all the time and expect to be creative. I’ve got to get out and talk to people, discuss ideas and then take that information back to my cave and go to work. For example, I wrote a Christmas play for FBC St. Pete. I had a blast meeting with a small team of people, brainstorming, and then coming home to write. The final product turned out pretty well, and my son has been asked to play one of the parts. Very cool.
4. Three months isn’t enough time to replace a full-time income with passion-income. Jon Acuff was right. These things take time.

I’ve had a fantastic opportunity to spend time doing the things I want to do, when I want to do them. God has shown me a lot about myself, and revealed areas where I still need to grow. I could have spent more time focusing this time on building my relationship with him, but I chose not to. And no, I’m not blaming a lack of success on that, I am just pointing out that it is something I could have done that may would definitely have been beneficial.

I don’t know what the future will bring. At this point, I am looking for a full-time job so that my family and I can keep a roof over our head, food in our kitchen, and so that my son can stay in private school. I plan to continue to blog for AndroidGuys and slowly, but surely, build some kind of tech blogging career.

I know God has plans for me, and I know they are good. I know he will bless the work I have done and the work I am going to do. I just don’t know what those plans are. I guess that’s why they call it faith. Who knows, perhaps something totally unexpected will pop up in the next few weeks that will change everything. For now, I need to focus on what I believe is the right thing to do.

Ideally, I will find a job that will allow for a mixture of collaboration and cave time, and a job that will allow me to be creative and make a positive impact on St. Petersburg.

Hebrews 11:1 (NLT)

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.

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