If I had been anything resembling prolific, this blog might have chronicled my descent into madness. Instead, it is a fragmented glimpse into the life of someone who stepped into the unknown, only to stumble back a changed person. The phrase "chewed up and spat back out" rings true, but it fails to capture the depth of my choices, their consequences, and the relentless erosion of my enthusiasm.
Recently, I’ve found myself turning to an unlikely metaphor: prostitution. Freelancing, like prostitution, is transactional. Both hinge on selling time, skill, and energy in exchange for compensation that often feels disproportionate to the personal cost. In my case, it wasn’t just the time I sacrificed—it was the piece-by-piece dismantling of my enthusiasm. With each project, I felt more drained. Even when you perform well, there is the constant expectation that you’ll pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and go again. And again. And again.
The resolution isn’t to abandon the work entirely. The resolution is to reclaim the power of choice. To recognize that the service provider—the freelancer, the metaphorical prostitute—holds more agency than it seems. They decide what to offer, at what price, and to whom. We can treat every "no" as a step closer to the "yes" that feels right.
One option, of course, could be to step into the shoes of the pimp—a provocateur who doesn’t sell their own body or skills but instead brokers the labor of others. It’s a tempting thought: to curate a stable of talent, package their abilities, and profit from the exchange without enduring the grind myself. It would mean building a business, leveraging my knowledge and becoming the middleman instead of the worker.
The other possibility is to sell a dream; an expensive one. Not just a service or a product, but an aspiration—something bigger than myself that clients can’t resist buying into. Instead of just working harder, I could work smarter, crafting a brand that is seductive.
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