A soup kitchen wouldn’t show on an income statement and nor would a food bank or a free clinic, but I imagine that there are more support services in cities.
As poor people seem to flock to cities.
And they aren't wrong to do that. Plenty of people were willing to take advantage of me and get free benefits from my knowledge, expertise etc when I was literally homeless and going hungry regularly while they did nothing for me. I still go hungry regularly and still add value and still can't figure out how to get my fair share.
I don't know what the solution is for me and I don't know what the truth is about cities, but I'm wholly unimpressed with this piece.
At a certain point in my life I was strapped, and I really related to your statement: I was trying hard to make a living freelancing / gigging etc and had accumulated a lot of skill and knowledge that I was offering far and wide. I found lots of takers for free or super cheap labor, but I was having a hard time paying my bills and really needed to get paid.
Somewhere along the line I realized I had to just stop doing anything for free. I started telling people up front something like “I could definitely solve X for you. I bill $50/hour.” Some things that I had previously worked on went away, but others surprisingly started paying. Over time I was able to raise my rate.
I eventually realized that, before, I hasn’t valued my own time enough, and I had been much too generous in doing things pro-bono just because they interested me, or I hoped that they would open doors down the line. And I realized that other people would never value my time for a penny more than I valued it. And again, part of it was that I was chasing some work I really wanted but was _never_ going to pay, and when I started having pay as a requirement, it stripped some of that stuff out of my life but ultimately replaced it with more productive and satisfying work.
I know that’s easier said than done, but it was a true ephiphany and major life breakthrough for me. So, again just in case that’s helpful or encouraging to you or anyone else reading, thought I’d share.
Rest assured, I wish it were a case of "Doreen is just being stupid about something and if she would just learn this one neat trick, everything would fall into place." But it's really not.
It's not laziness. It's not me being neurotic. It's partly sexism and misogyny out in the world but that doesn't explain the whole thing.
I'm a writer. I need more Patreon supporters and more resume work and more tips on my blogs. Someday maybe I will have "a real business" of some sort. Until then, I need to somehow make writing cover my bills because that's what I am capable of doing given a long list of constraints on my life, including poverty making it hard to move on to other things.
Thank you for your concern. I hope your comment helps someone else.
Probably too more opportunities, which means more opportunities to go sour.