"Remember, that time is money."
– Benjamin Franklin, Advice to a Young Tradesman (1748)
With all the people out of work, you read a lot about how those people who do have jobs are afraid of getting fired and joining the unemployed masses. These corporate cubicle dwellers work long hours, don’t take vacations, and remain so "connected" that they have no personal life even when they go home.
It’s similar for the self-employed in a bad economy. All of us worry that if we don’t take a project, we’ll have no work ever again. I was talking to an extremely successful business owner the other day and she expressed the same sentiment. Because of this worry, she hasn’t turned down many projects over the years. Maybe that’s why now she has more money than she knows what to do with. She has a multi-thousand square foot house that is so opulent, the pictures made my jaw drop. She has clients calling her constantly and more work than she can handle. And like the cubicle dwellers worrying about their tenuous jobs, she’s unhappy because as she put it, "she has no life."
My feeling is that when you’re self-employed, sometimes you do have to say "no." Success should be measured by more than just money. You only have so much time and if you spend all of it at work, you’re missing out on a lot of good moments. Life is short and I have no interest in spending all of it attached to some electronic device. Computers make it possible for me to earn a living and that is good. But when I start feeling like I’m a slave to the computer, the balance is off.
Most happy people you meet don’t spend all their time at work. For example, this week, we had the opportunity to be part of the crew of a 29-foot sailboat in a sailing race. If you want to see happy people, watch a bunch of sailors out on their boats racing across the lake. Even though the wind was only sort of good for the race, the experience was awesome. The person who owned the boat told us what to do and we newbies all had a blast.
So my feeling is if success is measured only in money, okay, this week, I was only marginally successful. However, if success is measured in time well spent, I did just fine 😉