Perspective

One of the very many reasons I love my friends and love meeting new people is because they bring perspective to my life.

I'm the sort of person who is never happy with where I'm at in life, I'm always wanting to strive for the next new thing, create the next goal, the next project; change this, move that. This doesn't mean I am "never happy" just that I am always trying to get to "anywhere but here", both geographically and in terms of this moment in time.

My "anywhere but here" issue of late is my day job. You know, the one that pays all those pesky bills. I don't hate it but I don't love it. It's certainly not my passion. However, it has a lot of perks: I work from home, I don't have anyone breathing down my neck (most days), I control my own schedule, and I get a lot of input into how the company is run. Am I sick-and-tired to the hilt of being "coached", "assessed", and "moulded"? Absofrickinlutely! But would I want to work anywhere else? You know, in one of those cubicle farms with a supervisor and all that? Ughh... no. (I firmly believe myself to be unsupervisable.)

Today I met with another local photographer and now, I hope, friend, and we chatted about business stuff. She does this full time, lucky gal, and she is looking at making some changes in her business. As a result, she's going through a lot of the same stuff I am right now: pricing, web content, branding, direction...

What I realized in that chat is that, as much as the golden-handcuffs are 8 hours of my day where I am not pursuing my passion, they provide me with some financial freedom to take chances and fail; risks that are much more nail-biting when photography is your main income, your livelihood. The stakes are higher, the ramifications greater if you don't make the right decision.

So, while I still dream of a life where I have a regular stream of business and income from photography, and where I can cut those chains to my corporate life, right now I am given the luxury of experimenting with my business on my own time, in my own way, and without the fear of failure.

Like I said, perspective.