The Little Freedoms Make A Huge Impact
Over on eMoms at Home, Dawud Miracle wrote a post called Knowing When To Slow Down. In it, he says, “Freedom, which I mostly define as a flexible schedule, is my main reason for being self-employed.” But he goes on to say “What I’ve come to realize over the years is that being self-employed has given far more little opportunities for freedom then it does large ones.”
That is a huge and wonderful truth about this business of working online (in your pajamas). It isn’t the fact that I can take long, luxurious vacations when I want. (I never do that, but I guess I could). It isn’t the fact that I can take short, weekend vacations in the middle of the week (I sometimes do that). The wonderful freedoms of what I do are the littlest freedoms of all.
If I get bored, I can get up and go watch the hummingbirds fight over the food in the feeder, without timing myself to make sure I don’t go over my allotted 10 minutes for a break. Or, if I can’t figure something out, and really need some quality “think time”, I can get up, walk around my land, and let the heat and hay smells clear my brain enough to let the creative thoughts through. Again, I don’t have to look at the time to make sure I get back to the office before the boss notices I’m gone.
Every day, after lunch, when that oh-so-sleepy feeling washes over me, I don’t have to struggle to fight it. I don’t have to continue to work through it, hoping my boss won’t notice I’m not being very productive. I just get up, crawl into my bed, and take a nap. A nap is the biggest little freedom I have these days, and I absolutely love being able to sleep for an hour or two in the middle of the day.
I could ramble on and on about all of the little freedoms that working from home has given me, but I think you get the point. I never underestimate these little freedoms. I know that no matter how many more hours I may work, each one of those little freedoms makes it all seem like no work at all.
I don’t need to be rich, and I don’t need to travel to far-off exotic lands. I only need to make a living, and have the little freedoms that I’m blessed with by working from home. Those things mean the world to me.
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Posted on August 31st, 2007 by DazzlinDonna
Filed under: Making Money Online
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I’ve struggled with this since i started working at home this summer. I’ve been trying to understand why I don’t feel as productive.
I think it’s because instead of giving myself permission to truly engage in this freedom - I’ve chained myself to my laptop. The problem is that the internet has so many distractions and I just say “well, let me read this and then i’ll do my work.”
The result has been me spending all my time on my laptop and less time engaging in the other parts of my life.
Thankfully, I’m learning from the “pros” like you and Dawud.
You’ll have to determine for yourself what “productive” is. For me, it ultimately means doing what has to be done in order to make a living. There are lots of things within that, of course, but that’s the bottom line. If I can find time for the little freedoms and still be productive, then I’m thrilled. (And I always make sure there’s time for that).
I’m with you all the way…with a cherry on top…here, Donna. It is the little freedoms that make all the difference in the world!
I could not be earning a living if I couldn’t work from home, literally. I am thankful every single day for the Internet and the ability it has given me to do things ‘my way’ instead of doing them someone else’s way, especially because health won’t permit me to do the ‘going to work in an office’ thing.
And, you brought up the very best part…getting to do things on weekdays. My husband and I spend most of our not-working time birding. The woods and fields are so much quieter when there aren’t joggers shouting into their cellphones as they tromp by on the trails, scaring away every bird and animal within a 2 mile radius. Nature comes out to play on weekdays, and I get to see it, thanks to working at home.
Nice post. Love the hummer!
Miriam
I hope that those just starting out can see the importance of the little things, Miriam. Rather than dreaming of a fleet of Hummers (the gas-guzzling kind), I hope they can see how wonderful it will be to enjoy the flying types of hummers.
Working online is definitely the best thing that happened to me in the past year. I’m happy I discovered this alternative, and although I’m still far from paying all my bills from it, I’m positive it will happen before I run out of savings for good. And you know what? I don’t need the biggest-fastest car in town to be happy. A smaller one can be as good (even better, if we think how scarce are the parking places nowadays)