Guest Post "Passions and Paychecks"
Today's guest post comes to us courtesy of Scott over at the intriguingly titled, Spiritual Tramp. Scott is a relative newcomer to reading this site as well, but he's been rather patient with my intermittent posting as of late, so I appreciate that. I hope to have a new original post up sometime next week, but I'm still interested in any and all guest bloggers to share the load. The email addy is janet@theartofgettingby.com. You know what to do!
There are some people in this universe that are fortunate or forward thinking or whatever enough to end up working for a living in a field that they are completely passionate about. Unfortunately, I don't count myself among those few, those proud few. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my job. I'm a big old geek at heart so working with computers and helping people with figuring them out and getting them working is certainly easy for me to do every day. There's not a great deal of passion there though. So then, I ask myself, what do I love and how do I turn that into my living?
One of the things that got me to thinking in that direction was an online quiz deals that I took for a blog meme. Head over to http://www.careercruising.com/default.asp and check out their career matchmaker if you're interested in seeing your results. My top ten results included jobs that involved a lot more writing and teaching than I'm doing now. The other circumstance that pushed me to that place was a conversation that I had with a fellow geek. His current work situation is due in large part to the fact that he could make a better living working for a financial institution than he could doing what he was passionate about. So, we both face the less than unique position of working in a job that we're less than passionate about because that paycheck is pretty darn important.
Is this something that I should be tearing my hair out over? No. Goodness knows I don't really have enough of that to spare, but it's certainly good blogging material. Thankfully, something came along not too long ago that turns this titular concern into more of a snake than a dragon. It's called the internet; you might be familiar with it. Thanks to the internet you might be able to turn that passion into a paycheck. And no I'm not talking about some fly by night scheme.
Take for example someone like my wife. She is a passionate seamstress and an all around craft goddess. She has used craigslist and the uber-cool Web 2.0 Etsy.com to get her wares into the public eye. Has she made a killing? No, not yet and she may never, but she is engaging in her passion and is able to share it with others. Depending on what you make and who you want to sell it to, I'm certain you can find a way to make that happen.
Then there's me. I love to write, teach and speak to those willing to listen. I don't like to do that to the unwilling. Were that the case I suppose I'd teach high school as I had originally intended. (God bless the teachers btw, for that very strength and countless other reasons.) That's part of the reason I began blogging. It gave me an outlet for my desire to get printed words out there for folks to see. Recently, thanks to a friend, I've also gotten involved in podcasting, using a couple of the free services floating around on the interwebs. In my case I use blogtalkradio.com and talkshoe.com. This and a couple of really talented writers who podcast their creations has whetted my appetite for podcasting my own fiction. At least one fiction author that I know of has a major book deal thanks to that process.
So if you're like me and your paycheck doesn't come from your passion, odds are there are still plenty of ways to express yourself. And who knows? If you work hard enough, maybe you'll get paid for it one day. Of course then you face the question of whether or not getting paid for it can turn it into the dreaded "job". That’s a risk I know I'm willing to take.
There are some people in this universe that are fortunate or forward thinking or whatever enough to end up working for a living in a field that they are completely passionate about. Unfortunately, I don't count myself among those few, those proud few. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my job. I'm a big old geek at heart so working with computers and helping people with figuring them out and getting them working is certainly easy for me to do every day. There's not a great deal of passion there though. So then, I ask myself, what do I love and how do I turn that into my living?
One of the things that got me to thinking in that direction was an online quiz deals that I took for a blog meme. Head over to http://www.careercruising.com/default.asp and check out their career matchmaker if you're interested in seeing your results. My top ten results included jobs that involved a lot more writing and teaching than I'm doing now. The other circumstance that pushed me to that place was a conversation that I had with a fellow geek. His current work situation is due in large part to the fact that he could make a better living working for a financial institution than he could doing what he was passionate about. So, we both face the less than unique position of working in a job that we're less than passionate about because that paycheck is pretty darn important.
Is this something that I should be tearing my hair out over? No. Goodness knows I don't really have enough of that to spare, but it's certainly good blogging material. Thankfully, something came along not too long ago that turns this titular concern into more of a snake than a dragon. It's called the internet; you might be familiar with it. Thanks to the internet you might be able to turn that passion into a paycheck. And no I'm not talking about some fly by night scheme.
Take for example someone like my wife. She is a passionate seamstress and an all around craft goddess. She has used craigslist and the uber-cool Web 2.0 Etsy.com to get her wares into the public eye. Has she made a killing? No, not yet and she may never, but she is engaging in her passion and is able to share it with others. Depending on what you make and who you want to sell it to, I'm certain you can find a way to make that happen.
Then there's me. I love to write, teach and speak to those willing to listen. I don't like to do that to the unwilling. Were that the case I suppose I'd teach high school as I had originally intended. (God bless the teachers btw, for that very strength and countless other reasons.) That's part of the reason I began blogging. It gave me an outlet for my desire to get printed words out there for folks to see. Recently, thanks to a friend, I've also gotten involved in podcasting, using a couple of the free services floating around on the interwebs. In my case I use blogtalkradio.com and talkshoe.com. This and a couple of really talented writers who podcast their creations has whetted my appetite for podcasting my own fiction. At least one fiction author that I know of has a major book deal thanks to that process.
So if you're like me and your paycheck doesn't come from your passion, odds are there are still plenty of ways to express yourself. And who knows? If you work hard enough, maybe you'll get paid for it one day. Of course then you face the question of whether or not getting paid for it can turn it into the dreaded "job". That’s a risk I know I'm willing to take.
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