Doing What You Love

November 01, 2003 | View Comments (12) | Category: Our Thoughts

Summary: Never let someone stop you from doing what you love.

There will always be some people you meet in life who believe that you owe them something. There will always be some people you meet in life that think because they write you a check they are better than you. There will always be some people who do not understand what it means to do what you do simply because you love it. There will always be some people in the world who wish to hold you down only because they fear seeing someone grow without their help.

There is someone who doesn't want me to write on this site anymore. There is a person who believes that the amount of money they were giving me is enough to sustain a living. There is someone who doesn't understand that on the web there are millions of clients and think that since you have a blog up, you are unduly taking all those clients away from them.

Sometimes you make deals and agreements with people not because you wish to, but you understand that in this world you do need money to survive. When you make these deals with people, they stop seeing you and only see you as part of the business. The beauty of life is knowing that it is your own. Everything I have learned I have either learned from people who post here or I have learned by studying by myself over the years. No employer has ever taught me the skills I now possess. No one person should even believe that they have created the professional I am. I thank every person who has helped me through my life and in return I have given back more than sufficiently. I have done things the wrong way for them, simply because that is how they wanted it. I have forsaken my own philosophies in life just to get by. I got tired of living that life.

I understood that if I was going to go anywhere in life I was going to do it on my own. Not many people have the courage to actually start something on their own. I didn't do it because I had courage, I did it out of fear. I feared not going anywhere in life. I feared that one day I would come home and their would be no one else I could ask to borrow some money from. I never advertised that I was the world's best designer. I didn't even ask people to use my services. I came here to write. People liked what they saw and decided that maybe I could do something for them. These people have helped me survive and I thank them.

Legal action will be taken on me soon because someone believes that making $250 a week is okay to live. Someone believes that I took their inventions from them and used them for my own. Someone doesn't understand that on the web my ideas will always be mine. This site is mine. 9rules is mine. I did everything this person asked of me, not once giving her less than a 100%. There was a time I could look across and thank that person for helping me "get by" in life. That time no longer exists. I like to welcome you back to Whitespace. These are my thoughts. These are my feelings. This is what I love.

Trackback URL: http://9rules.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/41

Comments

#1

Woohoo! welcome back!

JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)

#2

Welcome back.

I love this quote:
"I like to welcome you back to Whitespace. These are my thoughts. These are my feelings. This is what I love."

You can feel the power and emotion in this quote. It sums up what I (and probably others) feel when designing. Good stuff man.

Josh (http://fuego.radiantrock.com)

#3

Welcome back. I too know what it's like to do what I love, although I'm in a slightly different situation. I know that I could never do anything as my full time job if I didn't like it, so I can totally understand where you're coming from.

I hope that whatever this person is doing to you, that it will be over quickly, with a minimum of pain.

milbertus (http://www.milbertus.com)

#4

yes, we should not sacrifice what we love... but every relationship involves opptortunity costs.

i would be more inspired by this post if you did not take yourself so seriously.

p.s. why did you think $250 was sufficient in the first place?

bryce (http://brycebenton.us/humdrum)

#5

It's interesting to see how most people have been socialized to be "employees" rather than "owners." Parents tell their kids,"Go out and get an educaton, so you can get a job." Career counselor in school say, "Polish your resume so you can get an interview at X company." And when you finally get that job, you say to yourself, "Yippee! I've made it."

One of the greatest things about America is that anyone with a good idea or valuable skill can start their own business. But most people don't want to abondon the comfort zone of a steady paycheck to risk becoming an entrepreneur. And employers don't want to encourage entrepreneurship in their best employees because that's a brain drain on their enterprise.

I don't know all the details of your situation, but I'm glad you brought White Space back. You're obviously a skilled designer and writer. If I were your employer, I'd be scared of you too. :-)

Louis (http://www.clotman.com)

#6

My best wishes are with you! The past is to be forgotten. Consider the future, which looks very bright, for you and 9rules.

Sunny (http://www.thesunreport.org/)

#7

It's good you decided to challenge it after giving it some reflection. Be yourself, no job owns you, and most especially one paying peanuts. If you've never walked out on a job before, make them realise that that is your true power, the power to say fuck you and your job. Look what happens to people who never take up that power inside of themselves, years later they wonder what they have done with their lives. Start reading Charles Bukowski in your lunchbreaks and putting your feet on the desk. Life goes on, either your employer learns to chill and backs down or you walk. They may miss you more than you miss them.

Joel Biroco (http://biroco.com/journal.htm)

#8

yeah, and watch office space!
"we see you've been missing a lot of work lately"
"Well, I wouldn't exactly say I've been missing it, Bob"

"He has upper management written all over him"

JC (http://www.thelionsweb.com/weblog)

#9

G4 Powerbook. I have a desktop G4 with Studio Display, and I never use it. I suppose I should take the nice display from the desktop and hook it up to my powerbook, but I move around a lot while I work (from home). I also like to stand up while I code sometimes, to keep the blood flowing a bit. Or compute from bed when I'm feeling crummy, which is what I'm doing now.

There's not much you can't do with one of these machines. Apache, PHP, MySQL, PostGreSQL, SSH, tidy, & vim support on the command line. Photoshop, BBEdit, Safari in the GUI. Windows IE via Virtual PC or browsercam for cross-platform testing.

Ah, life is good. If I could just shake this sore throat...

Sam Barnum (http://homepage.mac.com/sbarnum)

#10

Welcome back, if you were gone longer you'd have been missed!

Sorry to hear about your troubles, but I'm sure you come through with flying colors.

Keith (http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/)

#11

Hey! I'm glad your back!

Another Josh

#12

Just like to thank everyone for the kind words.

Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)

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