Let go of your illusions, don’t rock the boat, keep moving forward

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I was talking to a friend the other day and he started consulting me again on an annual question. It’s the one question he asks me every year.

He asked if I should quit my job and go into self-publishing.

I said why. He then started rambling on about some recent grievances in the workplace. In the past two years, he got a new job. What he did was also copywriting and other content, which is similar to writing a public website. However, the project team is not the company’s core project team, do a few years without much progress.

Immediate leaders hand out jobs and headaches, but there’s really nothing to do about how to boost readership and paid subscriptions.

He had a vague feeling in his heart that this project was going to be yellow sooner or later.

The content he had been doing for the past few years, he didn’t like, he wasn’t passionate about his work, and he didn’t feel the growth.

Simply say these few things, I usually suggest that he, quickly leave this company, this project, even if not quit his job to do self media. Should also change a company, change a project team.

However, I didn’t say that.

Because I know him too well. We’ve known each other for almost 10 years. He was always rocking. Just graduated into a company to do advertising, although the newborn calf, but it is also considered to grow faster. Only, after more than a year of work, he was hurt by the crazy overtime of the advertising company. He took a break, for a year, and within that year, he tried to support himself by writing for the public.

The result is that a year has passed and all the accumulated savings have been spent. The public number also has only 10,000 fans. Readership averages around 1,000. Occasionally, I’ve written a few articles with over 10,000 and even 100,000 plus. But in general, the rate of increase in powder and reading are not enough to support themselves.

Immediately after his savings were spent, he prepared his resume and went job hunting again.

And so in the ten years we’ve known each other, he’s changed jobs 5-6 times and quit his job to do self-publishing 4-5 times. In a flash, he was in his 30s. The public number of fans is still not much of a big rise. During the period also experimented with the small red book, jittery voice, etc., but also did not have a big achievement.

Work level, around 10 years, never worked for more than 2 years in any company. Although the salary has increased with the development of the industry, but compared to my friends who graduated at the same time, no matter the rank or salary, it is not good. I don’t have a lot of savings either.

So, I kind of discouraged him this time, even though a couple times before, I had encouraged him. I believe everyone has the opportunity to be a different person. It takes encouragement, it takes opportunity. But there aren’t many people I’ve met who swing as badly as he does from side to side.

I’ve written a few articles talking about self-publishing, or indie developers, and how all the practices that require you to take your own risks and find your own income actually require stronger self-management skills. That’s exactly what our education and society won’t teach you.Even some celebrities, some writers, and I’ve written before about Liu Cixin have said that writing steadily becomes difficult after they don’t have a job at a power plant.

The reasoning is easy to say, but it’s really hard to do.

I’ve been a programmer for 20 years, and quite a few of my friends, have similar energy. We all feel tired of writing more code inside the company, and we all feel that what we are doing is not what we want to do. There are countless people have their own outsourcing, their own amateur independent development ideas. However, only a few of them can become independent outsourcing and independent developers in the end.

Take myself, I shamelessly and often say I’m somewhat talented. I write programs, mix a lot of companies, in each company can become the company’s man of the hour. I have created two businesses have gotten investment, we did the site search, in the industry used to lead. I wrote a public number to write a foot netizen, I used to have hundreds of thousands of fans in the microblogging, I published a book. Even if you don’t look good, you have a lot of fans in the oil pipe. Wait a minute.

But, I actually have a wobbling problem.

Around 2018, a severe bout of depression, suppressed for a year, not going out and seeing people, not writing articles, not even answering ads. Spent all my savings. It wasn’t until later that I got motivated to walk away.

I had thought that I had come out completely. I took my savings and returned to Tianjin, fantasizing about a bright future and preparing to save more money to settle down in Japan.

As a result, there was an epidemic, and what was thought to be a quickly passing ripple.

Who knew that this three year epidemic would exacerbate some of my mental issues and grind down my self-publishing, my app. i struggle regardless with stopping work, depression, self-loathing and trying to rise to the occasion and try to get out.

I’ve wanted to give up countless times, in fact, I have very few requirements for survival as a human being. I could easily mix it up next time. I could even be a full-time son or daughter, dawdling around my parents until I die. But I also have all kinds of resentment in my heart.

Often think of their own high friends, often think of their own randomly say something on the Internet, hundreds of thousands of comments. And often feel that I am now winding up the public number, the readership is often only a few hundred.

Once I a video that made myEnglish Easy ReadOver 20,000 downloads. Now I’ve posted two versions in a row, publicized them numerous times, and still haven’t gotten over a thousand downloads.

There are always ups and downs in life, problems of opportunity and problems of coping with ourselves.

I am no longer a 20 year old, energetic young man, nor am I a master of the industry in Beijing and Shanghai surrounded by good friends, pointing the way.

I sometimes regret that I didn’t go for more cash or radiate more influence into other areas when I had hundreds of thousands of Weibo. I also regret that I didn’t keep updating and gaining more influence in the times when I was most complimentary with my WeChat followers.

But what’s past is past, and you can only see yourself clearly when you’re at a low point.

In fact, most of the time, when the mix is good, it is just the result of previous efforts and passionate pursuit of results. Of course with our tails up in the air, we actually start going downhill ourselves. My life has been the result of one wobble at a time as well.

So, today, although I am 45 years old and facing the mirror, I already have some gray hairs. I should do nothing more than give up the illusion, don’t rock the boat, and keep moving forward.

Let go of your illusions, don’t rock the boat, keep moving forwardappeared first onTinyfool’s personal website