For Me, Having a Day Job is Just Another Form of Addiction

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” - Mark Twain

There are two main paths in life that I could choose from:

1) Working for others (a day job).
2) Working for myself (building a business, living on investment income, etc.).

After being trained my whole life (through the education system) to work for others, and then having had a day job for approximately 16 years straight, I am happy to finally be trying out the alternative (be your own boss!).

Since I quit the day job I have realized several things.  The first of which:

Working a day job is like an addiction

A day job is safe, comfortable, and familiar. When you work a regular job, you know what to expect and exactly how it is going to make you feel.

Day in and day out, over and over again, the never ending toil.

Work becomes a means to spending money. Work, spend, work, spend. What else are you going to do with the money? You save some, invest some, pay your bills, and of course there is a bit left over to reward yourself! So you spend some.

I am not talking about spending addiction here…..only the simple work-spend cycle, and how infectious it really is. Get a better job, buy slightly nicer stuff. Day job drones make perfect little consumers.

There is a sense of “hustle” in working your day job. Are you saying all the right things, keeping the right people happy? Are you safe and secure in your position? Are you helping out enough around the office, getting enough work done in a timely manner, etc.?

All of this mental overhead becomes obsessive at some point. All of it driven by the need to keep your salary. Work, spend, work, spend.

Oh please don’t let anything interrupt this precious cycle! That could seriously curtail my spending!

There is a certain comfort that comes from showing up to work every day and getting that paycheck. It may be miserable, but at least it is consistent, right? And you do get to reward yourself with spending!

Working a day job is easy, boring, safe, and mindless.  You get to spend money without much thought because you know you will just make more money by working.

Follow the herd – working for others is safe!

Business involves risk. Starting your own business involves risk. If this were not the case, you would not be in business, you would likely be working for a paycheck at the hands of a boss.

There is a mentality of working a day job that it is safer than entrepreneurship. This is understandable, because in most cases, this is probably true. Many new businesses fail, and many online businesses never reach success.

But realize that the safety of a day job comes with a steep price:

* Relatively fixed earning ceiling.
* Trading life energy for spending money in an endless cycle.
* Office politics and emotional cost of dealing with such.
* Work-spend cycle, rewarding yourself, and corresponding drain on finances.
* False security for some people as companies fold, jobs are lost, etc.

Is there safety and security in working a regular job? Probably when you compare it to building a business, yes. But the costs of that safety are quite high and the risk/reward structure of online business is still very enticing. For example, I started my successful online business while still working 40 hours per week. What is to stop other employees from pursuing a similar part time business start up?

Even without the added security (which is sometime false), entrepreneurship is still more desirable for me because:

Working for others is B-O-R-I-N-G

I can still remember the frustration and boredom that I felt 20 years ago when I took my first job.

After a week or two of training the job was no longer challenging. It had reduced me to a robot. And then to keep doing this, for how many years?

Two decades (and several jobs) later I was hired in to a position that I was told was “challenging.” Previously, I had referred to the new position as “a cushy job” and my boss corrected me, saying it was very intense, challenging, and detail-oriented.

Wrong.

A month later I was bored to tears, running around with two to four hours of down time every day, and helping my coworkers fix their computers.

And this was supposed to be challenging?

I would rather be an entrepreneur and face a failing business….at least that is exciting and challenging!

The ultimate goal is no job, no business, no work spend cycle….just investment income and frugal living

Ultimately I do not want a day job, nor do I necessarily want to manage or own a business.

I want enough investment income to cover my living expenses. Period.

That means having enough money invested that I can live on the interest/dividends without touching the principal.

That may seem like a fantasy but keep in mind I am not trapped in the work-spend cycle. I do not upgrade my car or my wardrobe based on changes of income. My monthly expenses are still going down as I optimize for frugality.

Living on $600 to $1,000 per month is not unthinkable. Having the investment capitol to produce that standard of living is not unthinkable either.

In the meantime, I intend to create businesses that PAY ME rather than succumbing to the work-spend cycle of being trapped in a day job.

Frugality used to be a dirty word. Now it is one half of my ticket to freedom.

Before I sell my soul and take another day job, I will focus hard on building my next business while also:

…..Getting a roommate to halve most of my living expenses.
…..Ditching my car to eliminate a ton of monthly expenses (gas, insurance, maintenance).
…..Ditching cell phone + internet and relying on free Wi-Fi for building the online business.
…..Consider geographical arbitrage to drastically lower my living expenses.

Extreme measures, to be sure. But so is working 40 hours per week and being trapped in the work-spend-work cycle. I would not do any of those four things lightly.

Each of those four things represents about $75 to $200 dollars per month in potential expenses. Eliminating just one is not significant, but pairing up two or three of those ideas would reduce monthly expenses to under $600/month.

If my next business becomes profitable quickly enough, none of these measures will become necessary. But I would strongly consider any or all of them before I went back to the work-spend-work cycle and grinding out 40 hours per week plus.  If you are stuck in the work/spend cycle then it is very hard to break free and purchase your freedom.

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