Give up the day job, and get a life!

(subtitle: Musings on modern day cottage industry)

Its been a long time now since I’ve had to check into an office every day of the week to put bread and butter on the table. I know though that for many of you reading this, that the workaday routine is the daily reality. Get up, go to the office, return home, go to bed…repeat until insanity, retirment or check-out-of-hotel-de-vivre ensues.

Of course, I am extremely grateful that every day some (most) people choose the 9 to 5 life, and that there are still others who actively enjoy it, thrive in it, need it, want it, aspire to it, and don’t seem to go insane at all. I salute all those of you who keep the wheels of industry turning  and operating within normal parameters.

I am one of those people who has a propensity toward madness when confined by a cubicle. Luckily in the past  I mostly worked in jobs where the senior cubicle dwellers thought that my crazy shenanigans equated to creativity, out of the box thinking, and actual productive work. Even turning up with a half shaven pink mowhawk could not convince them otherwise. They gave me a prize and more staff.

I digress. Really, we all have a duty to play at least some part in it, performing some kind of ‘useful to society role’ no matter how much the ‘get rich quick’ merchants proclaim how daft we all are for trading our time for money. Hey, you can only sit around a pool for so long sipping pina-coladas before you actually get a bit bored and say to yourself “there must be more to life than this!’

Productive usefulness beckons…

The wonderful thing about how how our society operates though (at least in my part of the world) is that we do have choices. To opt in, or out, or try something different if the mood takes us. I have chosen to do something different. Maybe you would like to do that too.

I often think back to how things were done in ye-bygone days, way way before any of us here on this planet were twinkles in anyones eyes, when people worked at home, made things at home, grew things at home, loaded up the cart with things from home, took the occasional trip to market with the things, to swap them for other things to bring back home again.

Its called Cottage Industry…

I often think of what my wife and I do as a cottage industry (yes my wife works at home too), but in the 21st century, with the marketplace now being the internet. We make our online art courses, we teach our art courses, we make our WordPress theme, we help people with our WordPress theme, all from the comfort of our ‘cottage’, surrounded by our lively young children, only emerging from the home to get supplies, engage in some kind of sporting activity or do any one of the myriad of things that I’d probably never get round to doing if I were clocking on 9  to 5. In short, we ‘got a life’, ie we are living it on our own terms, making a living off our own ideas. Useful ideas. Ideas that can make a difference to others (not only ourselves – and thats the really special thing we love).

So, maybe now you are saying to yourself “hey, this cottage industry gig sounds like something I should do!”

That’s great! Welcome to the ‘out-of-office-rollercoaster-fun-ride-of-your-life’. The catch is though that on this rollercoaster you lay the track as you go, and determine the direction, up, down, left, right, forwards, backwards or otherwise, even though you are mostly staying put in your cottage. Its amazing how thrilling staying in one place can be in that context.

I recently had the pleasure of laying down some more track; a website in fact. DrawPj.com. It’s a place where beginner artists and art instructors can come together, to jump out of the day-to-day routine to learn how to create art, or even learn how to teach the course themselves so that they too can make their own cottage industry. I like the idea of a whole community of little art teaching cottage industries springing up all over the world, and us all being connected over the internet.

So there you have it, thats my cottage industry; my escape from the getting on the bus twice a day world. If you are ready to start your own cottage industry then I can heartily recommend it to you as a lifestyle choice. Are you really happy with someone telling you that you can only have 45 minutes for lunch, and that you must be interred in a grey carpetted cubicle in front of a computer screen that could very well have been accessed from your home anyway. That’s just plain craziness!

Oh, yes, the website for our online art course is DrawPj.com for anyone who is interested, and, of course, Heatmap Theme is always there for you when you want to monetize your ideas with a little Adsense, if thats your ticket out of the termite hills of corporate life