Freelance Loneliness
Three years ago, I was a far cry from freelance loneliness, in fact, I was surrounded by people from the beginning to the end of each day. See, I was a barista at a coffee shop in the morning and in the evening I was acting or producing theatre. What an incredible range of people I conversed with on a daily basis! From the tight-wad businessman to the free-spirited pixie chick, I had every angle of the personality test covered. It was in these lines of work that I truly fell in love with people.
Currently, life has a different plan for me, as I'm writing nearly every day of the week. Socially, I've done a complete 180. As a barista and an actor, the people came to me. As a writer, the only people that I get to see are the ones that I seek out. Despite my new circumstances, I still see myself as a people person. So, how do I deal with the freelance loneliness?
I'll admit that it took some getting used to. Even though I had newfound freedom and a much higher ceiling earnings-wise, I yearned to go back to my minimum pay/maximum human contact job. Getting that feeling out of my system took a lot of relaxed thinking (thankfully, I had spare time). It was obvious that if I pushed myself with passive income project, I would be able to do more of what I wanted with less debt. The first step then was simply to convince myself that I was doing the right thing and that it was in line with my future goals of prosperity and inspiration.
Secondly, I needed to use some of my added free time to do things alone that I hadn't been able to do when surrounded by people. I listened to audio programs and podcasts, I took up reading paper and digital books more often, I went for long, relaxing walks, I began exercising more, I took up cooking and a host of other things. If you treat your free time as freedom as opposed to "alone time" it will feel much more satisfying.
The third and final step to overcoming my freelance loneliness was to plan social activities during most days throughout my week to stay connected to humanity. There are many professions or circumstances that allow people to be available during the day for a face-to-face. Lunch meetings are ideal because they are short, sweet and everybody needs to eat lunch anyway. You can also schedule a work date, if you need to get work done but you are starving for human contact. In a work date, you and your friend both agree to bring your laptops and mostly do work. It's like a study date during college, except with less making out. You can also, of course, just enjoy a regular outing with friends during the day when you've gotten your work done.
Don't let freelance loneliness scare you from a rewarding solo job that gives you the ability to accomplish things that are just plain impossible to do in an office or a coffee shop.
