Why I’ll take self-employment over employment any day

I started working from home in 2012.

At the time, most of my time and energy was spent writing blog posts for a music industry startup. The income was good for the work I was doing, but it wasn’t enough.

I had an offer to teach guitar at a music store once per week, so I decided to take it.

In time, my income with the music industry startup doubled, so between the two commitments, I managed to piece together a decent income.

Not that I had worked many conventional jobs up to that point, but that was the beginning of a new season in my life. I started dividing my time between the work I was doing at home and the odd jobs I picked up elsewhere. This gave me time to build my own blogs and websites, too.

Jump ahead to 2016, and I was able to walk away from my side gigs outside to work on my business and writing projects entirely from home. That was a hugely gratifying experience.

Teaching Others How to be Self-Employed

A couple of years ago, I had a friend who asked me how he could set himself up to be doing what I was doing. He wanted to spend more time on his creative pursuits instead of wasting his time at a job.

At first, I didn’t take him too seriously. But after I connected him to my contacts and resources, soon he was up and running and even landing himself better work than I was.

In the gig economy, it is totally possible to piece together several opportunities to support yourself. And, sometimes one opportunity is more than enough.

Eventually, though, my friend started bemoaning some of the downsides of working from home.

Here are some of the points he raised:

• In a job, you can develop rapport with your coworkers and make friends. There’s a built-in social aspect to it.
• If you’re an artist who’s self-employed, you end up becoming a shut-in because both your work and your creative work are oftentimes done in isolation.
• As a freelancer it can be hard to find steady work.

For better or for worse, there are pros and cons to any line of work you choose to…