It’s sort of comical and yet it is reality, or at least my reality. This morning I woke up early and knew from the night before I needed to shovel my drive way. All the other neighbors had shoveled theirs the day before after the snow had stopped. My drive way had two sets of tracks in it, one where I had left for work in the snow and a second when I had returned home last night.
A neighbor and friend of mine stopped by as I was shoveling and asked, “What are you doing? Why didn’t you do this yesterday?” The only answer I had was the truth. I left yesterday while it was still snowing and didn’t leave work until almost 7:00pm. By the time I ate dinner and arrived home I was too beat to think about shoveling snow.
That is the life of the self employed. You make to work when others can’t, and you shovel your drive after others have. It’s not just snow, it’s everything. When you decide to be self employed you take on more than most people realize. It almost feels as though you have a second family to divide your time with. A second home (office) to maintain, another body of people (customers) to care for, a second set of administrative duties such as filing taxes twice, another mortgage to pay, trash pick up to deal with, cleaning and repairing. It’s truly more than people realize before they get into it and more than friend and family can apprehend.
I am not complaining. If it wasn’t worth it, I would not be on my 15th year of self employment. What I have learned is to stop trying to make others I know understand what it is like. Until you take responsibility for a company there is no way to understand all there is to the position.
My shoveling is done, I can relax a little on the couch before I must get up and begin working again. The wonderful news is I can work from home today while watching the birds in the feeder while I write and prepare for Monday’s classes.
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