Surely my purpose in life can’t be to wake up & go to work everyday feeling like a square peg in a round hole just to pay for my existence?
Or am I just getting old & cynical?
More & more in recent months I’ve felt that my life has a purpose, & that I need to find out what that is. Pretty hard when you’re slogging it out in a call centre 8 hours a day, working shifts, coming home annoyed, drained of energy & fed up. So … on the strength of that feeling I QUIT WORK! Suddenly just like that, no agonising or deliberating. I just did it. For the first time in my life I don’t have to be somewhere everyday at a certain time.
Has that decision given me freedom? Sure but then the challenge became how to make a living to pay the ever mounting bills. I still need to eat, pay the mortgage & feed the dog, the electric company isn’t interested in my epiphany moment only in cold cash.
The lure of working at home creating a web based business was already in my mind so I launched into it wholeheartedly. Wow .. for a smart person who has never found it hard to conquer new things a whole new world of confusion opened up to me. There’s a snake oil salesman at every turn promising a magic formula which will bring the $$$$$$ rolling in (they even show you the photoshopped accounts) :). Bombarding my inbox with hard sell, autogenerated, insincere promises of the real thing. But wait! The next day there’s another launch of another better real thing. I can see why many start to walk the road to internet riches & fall by the wayside in a shattered heap.
I resisted the urge to hammer my credit card & decided to do thorough, logical research. Minisites? Affiliate Marketing? Forex Trading? Blogging to the bank? Create Ebooks? Find gold on the Public Domain? Private Label? I feel as though I’m learning a new language where there are multiple definitions for every word. Hours days & weeks have been used up attempting to find my way through the maze of confusion which is internet business opportunities. I now have so many bookmarks that I could open a bookmark shop.
Finally, I chose a marketer (sorry guru) to follow & signed up for a course. It had reached critical mass & a decision had to be made. Happy days I thought an end to the confusion. Not quite – keywords, long tails, Adsense, SEO, backlinks, click through rates, monetization … here we go again. It’s not just a steep learning curve it’s a bloody mountain with no top in sight – each time I come up another slope & think I’m there the summit’s shifted.
I know I’m not alone as I’ve seen the pleading posts of the struggling newbies chasing the illusive pot of gold being offered on every corner. I’ve read hundreds of long long long pages of landing page copy (what is that about anyway?) is it the psychology of wearing down your opponent with information overload … Hey don’t forget the bonuses, plus the additional bonuses, late bonuses, early bird bonuses & of course the double secret bonuses. No pressure but there’s only 57 left in the world.
All that for an ebook with the magical formula to weight loss? What? Try eating less or better still fighting through the internet jungle, that’ll not only take pounds off but years as well.
OK it’s not that bad (maybe).. but it is a crazy world once you hook into it. But, I’ve done all my keyword & monetizing research, found my product to promote & am intent on learning to start my blog, so will be stepping back onto the roller coaster shortly to master that particular area. But, at least I’m about to commence building my site under the watchful eye of my “guru” who will be walking me through this next step in a video tutorial. Have you noticed there are more gurus on the internet than there are in India right now? True story.
Have I found my purpose in life? I think I’m getting there plus I’ve learned a lot about myself since I began this process. I’ve learned what I’m really genuinely interested in as I’ve been forced to choose an area to become involved in for my business. That in turn has led me to some amazing, interesting & mind expanding people & websites. There is a huge world full of incredible people out there doing even more incredible things. The world is not full of greedy,selfish, violent people – they’re just the politicians ooops I mean the ones the media focus on.
Although my world has shrunk in terms of face to face people contact in not fronting up to the coalmine every day, my mind has expanded exponentially by being exposed to so many new concepts & people’s ideas from all around the globe. That alone has been worth the price of admission.
I’ve learned I’m not a quitter. More importantly as the economy has continued to implode whilst I’ve been on this journey I’ve realised I need to be able to rely on my own skills & initiative to make an income. Not on the corporate world. Already jobs where I used to work have begun shedding & I feel good that I’d started taking steps to own my life. I feel the fear of standing on the edge for sure, but I don’t feel the fear of being pushed. There’s a big difference.
I'm doing 6 things
