February 9, 2012

Don’t Get a Job

It’s been at least an year since I found Steve Pavlina’s excellent blog and read his post on why you should never get a job. I totally agreed with Steve’s assessment of how it was more risky to depend upon a certain person for your lively hood and quite a few other points that I could not do justice so if you want the rest then read his blog post.

Even though I agreed with Steve, I did not really think it was all the pertinent to me. After all I had already gotten a job so it was definitely too late for me not to get one. I’ve been working since I was fourteen and working on Hollace Carter’s farm in the afternoon. For the past eight years or so I’ve been employed in a state position and I’m safe, right? No wrong.

I’ve seen the current trend of outsourcing tech jobs to other countries, but this would never affect me because after all I work for the state and even bad employees get to keep their jobs in the state. I’m a good employee. I’m good at my job and I do everything that is asked. Well I’ve been living in a fantasy world, because I have not been safe either. This came home to me earlier this week when the Governor announced a new initiative to outsource all the tech positions within Georgia within ten months. This will mean approximately 1100 workers will lose their current position and either retire, move to the outsourcing company, or be eliminated. Guess what I’m one of those 1100. I could go into all the reasons why I think this would be a mistake, but to dispute the logic behind the move would be a futile exercise.

I’m not old enough to retire and I’m not crazy about working for an outsourcing company. If I move then I lose the retirement and seniority I have built up over the years. I have turned down many jobs over the years, just because I wanted to vest in the retirement plan. I turned down an interview one day before this announcement that could have meant a position with a hundred thousand yearly salary( I’m not making $100K currently), but I thought it may not be a good move. Hindsight would tell me that I probably should have taken the interview.

Steve Pavlina would say this is all a result of the manifestation of my desire to quit my day job. Thinking about it then Steve may be on to something. I do not really want to work for anyone any longer and I could view this announcement as a motivator to accomplish my goals. I have a few sites in my portfolio that have some potential for growth and higher earning power. I also have several domain names registered for ideas that I’ve never gotten off the ground. I can use the next ten months building up those sites to a point where they would allow me to support my family utilizing only the web. In my previous post I never posted a timeline, but I had a timeline of one year to realize my goals. Its Ironic that the Governor announced this would be in place by October of next year. If you read the date on my previous post then I made that post in November. Perhaps this is divine intervention setting the date for me.

I may start posting less on this blog, because I’m sure I can earn more from other niches than from this site. I’ve got a couple of sites that earn fairly decent, but I have ran out of ideas for new posts. Seems the Universe has stepped up again and provided resources since there was just a post on ProBlogger about how to generate ideas for posts. I followed the directions for a few minutes this afternoon and came up with several ideas for niches that I’ve been stuck in. Now I just need to write the articles. I’m viewing this entire announcement as something positive and a natural progression of the path to my goals.

Blog while you are having sex

I came across a funny video today about the coming of the second web bust. I don’t spend a lot of time on Youtube even though I should because I’m sure this vid is getting a lot of traffic. I’m graphically challenged :) Well since they said to blog about this video I had to blog it :-)

Giving Thanks

Well its almost Thanksgiving here in the US and its got me to thinking about what I’m thankful for this year.

First and foremost I’m thankful for my family who support me in so many ways and they even understand when I’m tapping away at the computer until all times of the night. Partly because they do understand I have some goals to obtain and partly because as long as I’m on the machine I don’t think of something else we need to do to the house.

I’m also thankful for this wonderful country that I live in where opportunity is available for anyone who wishes to work for it. I’ve been able to increase my revenue another 10% this year and while its not exactly what I hoped for its decent and helps me to obtain my goals.

I’ve seen a steady increase of traffic to all my sites, including this one which I have not even worked on much during the year. I am pledging to post more next year and bring this site out of the shadows. After all this is my name sake site, it should be the most popular of all my sites, but at this point its not.

Many times we get in a rut and focus too much what we do not have, instead of what we do. While I’m not satisfied with the progress I’ve made in some areas, I have a great life. I live in a lovely house and I have plenty to eat, a nice truck to drive, a huge T.V., Every game system known to man( well really these are my kids, but he lets me play with them when I want). I do okay.

There are a lot of people in the world who don’t even have the basic necessities of life. Its easy to think about what you don’t have, but perhaps you should look around and see what you have. No matter what has went wrong in a life as long as you have a breath of life in you, there is hope. If you focus on the positive then you will achieve your goals. My wife gave me a CD of Joel Olsten a while back and it has really started to have an impact on the way I view the world. To borrow one of Joel’s phrases. You must conceive and believe, before you will receive. So be thankful for what you have and focus on the positive. Its really the only way to live. At least for me it is, you can make up your own mind. So this is my giving thanks post for the things I have been blessed with in this world.

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