What do you imagine when you read those words ‘Work Town’? Do you see an industrial town, all factories, grime, and smoke, with exhausted waif-like people shuffling to grinding dirty jobs that pay little but take too much? Do you see a town full of offices, with commuters squeezed together at the same time each morning to arrive for a 9 a.m. start to a day that will consist of tapping away at a keyboard or yapping away in meetings? Do you see a town full of home-workers, flexi-workers, sitting over laptops in Starbucks, having Skype meetings over their smart phones with other teleworkers in different time zones, fitting work around their lives, not the other way round, dropping in and out of work clubs, private clubs, health clubs, club lounges, creating passive incomes from e-businesses and smart investments?
Do you see work as something unpleasant, which you have to do and tolerate so that you can earn money to pay for your life? Do you long for clocking off and the weekend and payday and vacations?
Or do you love your work? Does your work give you so much satisfaction, so much meaning, that you’re happy to work into the evening, through the weekends, and skip the vacations?
Do you want me to stop asking so many questions, given I can’t hear what you’re replying? Yes? Oh, go on, just a couple more…
Do you need to continue to earn money to live?
Do you need to earn as much as you do to live?
There are some people who can answer ‘no’ to the first question; the lucky few who can sustain their lifestyles (higher or lower) without ever earning another dime. There are not many of you, but you’re out there, and working out what you want to do with your time and your life is as potent a question for you as it will be for the other 99 percent.
And of the 99 percent, I’m pretty sure that many of you could downsize if you really wanted to, or had to.
So this is where we start with work: examine your approach to work, your assumptions about work, and all your ideas about money and lifestyle. Just a small task.
Or you could start here:
What do you LOVE doing?
If you didn’t have to earn any money to live, what would you do? How would you spend your time?
If you won the jackpot, say enough money to keep you going at your current lifestyle level for two years, what would you do with your time?
Write the answers down. You could even buy a little notebook, or open a page on your smartphone notebook app and call it ‘WHAT I LOVE DOING.’ Don’t censor yourself. You’re not trying to work out if you can make any money from this. Not yet. You’re just writing everything down.
I do it all the time. And I’ll do it now. I will make some notes LIVE, publicly, of WHAT I LOVE DOING:
Okay, I haven’t censored or edited it.
Don’t censor or edit your list (even if ‘I love masturbating’ is up there at the top). Don’t get upset that you didn’t put apparently worthwhile stuff (or people) closest to the top. If you spent some time dreaming up all the ways you’d love to spend your time in Breaking Through the Wall of Lack of Imagination, now is the time to just write down what comes to mind as it comes to mind. Do it quickly.
You can spend a couple of weeks doing this if you fancy. Carry your notebook/smartphone around with you so that you can add things as you go. I’ve done this many times. I end up adding lots of stuff. Because I realize, in the course of actually living, that I’ve forgotten some important things that I really love.
And by doing this you create a comprehensive idea of what you love doing in life. You’ll probably, too, remember things that you used to love doing that you don’t do anymore. I did this exercise a few years ago and realized that what I used to REALLY love doing when I was younger was making music (on a guitar). I realized in that moment that I could make music again, not on the guitar this time, but digitally – I could create the music I love to listen to (electronica) myself. Awesome. It took me a while to learn the required bits of software. But I figured it out. I loved it. I love it. And I’ll soon be earning some moolah1 from doing it, too2.
And thus we move on to the next question: can you earn any money from any of the things you love doing? If you reply that you don’t want to earn money from what you love doing because it would ruin the thing you so love doing then please go back to the beginning of this chapter and examine your relationship with work and money.
The idea here, in case you haven’t spotted it, is to make money (small or large amounts depending on the desired lifestyle) from doing what you love.
And it takes some F**k It. It takes some ‘F**k It, I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life.’ And it takes some ‘F**k It, yes I can make this work.’ And it takes some ‘F**k It, I don’t care what you lot say, I’m going to do this.’
Yes, I know, you’re looking at your list thinking ‘how can I make money from ‘arranging flowers in a Zen way?’ or ‘making models of watering cans out of matchsticks?’
But it’s possible to make money out of just about anything, especially if you love doing it.
The second point first: when you love doing something, you put everything you have into it; you’re happy to be doing it, and people pick up on that. You make money when other people want what you’ve got to give. And they’re more likely to want what you’ve got to give when they feel that it comes from your heart and your passion.
Simple example: you go into a hardware store to buy fork handles. There’s a slovenly youth behind the counter listening to some dub-hop on his iThing. You ask him ‘Excuse me, do you have fork handles for me to purchase, perchance?’
He suddenly realizes you’re there. He pulls out his earphones and asks you, ‘What?’ So you repeat your question. He replies, ‘Dunno, probably not, try the candle store, mate.’ You don’t understand, but are too irritated, especially by his overfamiliar use of the word ‘mate,’ and leave.
Compare that to the experience you would have had with the chap who worked in a factory most of his adult life, but always dreamed of owning a hardware store. He just loved hardware stores – oh, to have one store that could stock so many useful items for people! He just loved the idea of rows and rows of tools, screws, tapes, key copies, handles, etc. So when he was made redundant from the factory, he used the money to open his own hardware store.
And there he is behind the counter, polishing his old-fashioned cash till when you come in:
‘Excuse me, do you have fork handles for me to purchase, perchance?’
‘Of course, sir. Can I ask you what size you’re thinking of?’
‘Why, I’m imagining just a usual size, I suppose.’
‘What, tall and thin, or short and stubby, white or a color, we have so many, sir. Would you like me to show you some, and you can take your pick?’
‘Why, thank you, that would be marvelous.’
You are delighted with this chap and his open, friendly manner. You will, of course, buy the fork handles he brings out for you to view.
When he brings out a range of candles, you are confused. But the confusion is soon cleared up. You said ‘fork handles;’ he thought you said ‘four candles.’ You both have a laugh. And you pay for four fork handles that combine as novelty candles so that, on birthdays, you can both tuck into the birthday cake with your fork, and light the fork at the same time to blow out and celebrate your birthday.
Now the first point, second: it’s possible to make money out of just about anything – especially with a variety of modern technologies (zippy ways to make and produce things, and zippy ways to spread the word about things and get your zippy things to zippy people all over the world). Combine the zippy technologies with some imagination and you could end up doing what you love and earning money from it very quickly. When you’ve earned enough money from it to know that you don’t have to continue doing the thing that you don’t love so much but have done because you had to earn money, you can stop doing the thing(s) you don’t love in favor of the thing(s) you do love. And that’s a good thing.
This is the formula:
If you can’t work out ways to make money, have a lie down and dream a bit more, talk to friends… there is an answer in there… you just need to let it come to you.
You can do it. Come on. Say after me:
‘F**k It, I can and will make a living out of doing what I love.’ And in the process I’ll be showing everyone I know that it’s possible to make a living of the things that they love, too. Until the whole world is doing what it loves and making a living out of it.
I make a living out of doing what I love. Gaia makes a living out of doing what she loves. Part of that happens to be teaching other people to say ‘F**k It’ and make a living out of doing what they love. Lovely jubbly3.
1 Money (origin unknown) but often described as such in the UK.
2 Listen to F**k It Music at www.thefuckitlife.com
3 A jocular expression meaning loveliness itself (and you really need to rub your hands together while saying it in a jolly sort of way). The inimitable Del Boy Trotter, in the smashing British sitcom of the ’80s and ’90s Only Fools and Horses, made this phrase famous.