How To Break Free From The Conventional Life

It’s been nearly two years since I’ve had anything that could be considered a “real” job. On September 12th of 2007 at 10:58pm I walked for one last time out of a basement office, up the stairs, through the hall, to the time clock and into uncertainty.

I had no idea where I would go or what I would do or how I would do it. A huge part of me felt relieved for finally getting to leave a job I hated, a way of life I just couldn’t accept as normal. But another part of me felt very different. It felt unsure, scared, regretful, guilty. It felt like a loser and a quitter just as it had felt every time I had a negative thought about my job and when I put in my two weeks notice.

But that was then. Now I see the flaw in my thinking.

Changing Your Mindset

If you want to be free, you have to change your mindset. If you want to change your mindset you have to know two things.

First, know who your oppressor is. My oppressor had, to some extent, been my job, but I was more often than not fighting with myself. The emotions I felt when I quit were the result of something ingrained in me from boyhood. That was, a job wasn’t meant to be enjoyed, it was meant to be tolerated. I had come to associate the toleration of things I hated with “being manly.”

So, by not accepting this nightmare of a job, it somehow meant I was lazy, worthless, maybe even disrespectful to my family and all the hard (but not smart, as I found out) workers I had descended from.

I can tell you now that this is absolute nonsense. Get it out of your head as quickly as possible because it won’t do you any good. Most people work at jobs they hate, not because they are “manly” or “respectable” but because they themselves cannot overcome the fear of stepping out from under the protecting wing of their almighty employer. It actually takes more courage to follow through on the entrepreneurial spirit.

After you’ve realized that the desire for a different kind of lifestyle isn’t an unusual or lazy desire, answer the question, “What is freedom?” What does it mean to you? To paraphrase Tim Ferris from his book The 4-Hour Work Week, how would you spend your time if you had all the money you needed, all the time you needed and if you were smarter than everybody else?

Would you be on a beach or on a mountain? In a crowd or with a friend? Working from home? Working from anywhere in the world? Once you set your standard for living, strive for it! Don’t lower it. Know what your ideal is and aim for that. You won’t hit it, but you’ll come pretty damn close and probably run into something even better.

Working Toward Your Goals

After you’ve figured out what your ideal lifestyle would be, try to work your way back from it and map out all the things you have to do to get there. I know planning can’t account for everything, but you’ll get a vague idea of what’s ahead of you. Most importantly, take action and, for God’s sake, move! Even the wrong move is better than no move. Three months after I had quit my job I was still laying around the house, bank account running dry, trying to figure out what I wanted to do. About mid-December that all changed.

It was around this time that I found FreelanceSwitch.com and was, for the first time in my life, introduced to adventurous individuals who were rebelling against wage slavery, the status quo and the conventional life. From here I slowly moved into freelance writing and blogging. It turned out to be the wrong move, but it led to graphic design jobs, which also turned out to be the wrong move. But that led to web design work which turned out to be the most perfect job in the world for me!

Get out there, find a community of people who feel the way you do, read as much as you can and make mistakes! It will change your life.

Conclusion

It was Socrates who said “The unexamined life is not worth living” and in a time when rampant consumerism and an unchecked status quo lead millions into comfortable lives of mediocrity, this saying has never been more true. Don’t be the victim of a society that discourages creativity, passion, adventure and mistakes.

We’ve all been conditioned for the industrial age, but we are not cogs. We are worth so much more and capable of so much more than we ever attempt.

Don’t be a casualty.

Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/diverslog/ / CC BY 2.0

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