Make Less Money Today, for Free!

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Are you still scrolling? Wow. That’s surprising.

I must say, the blogosphere has really changed since I last did it. There are a lot of good ideas with interesting concepts being published on the web. There are also some really bad ones, too (Hot or Not websites, I’m looking at you…). But lately, I’ve been bombarded with an emerging category that is awesome for some and garbage to other. I will subtly name this category of sites:

“Make-more-money-work-less-and-do-it-all-in-your-pajamas-because-you-can” kind of sites.

If that works for you, awesome. Go for it. Relatively speaking, however, that kind of website ploy is not so universally helpful for three reasons:

1. Let’s be honest, some people look like trolls in their pajamas (such as yours truly).
2. Where’s the fun if you don’t get to wake up before the sun and mumble curse words at your broken coffee maker while trying to get to the office in time? And…
3. What happened to a good day’s work? 

Man, I’m starting to sound like an old fart. 

An emergent trend has begun that tells us, “Work less. Live more.” Now, I’m all for vacations and experiences and growing out my beard whilst traveling across country with my hot wife. I also know that I would feel completely useless if I actually did all of those things. Like I said, I love the idea of not working, it just sounds kinda boring. And what about that feeling of worth? How do we feel we are really helping anybody by working for our retirement? What is this strange feeling I’m feeling towards work?

That strange feeling has a name. It’s called self-efficacy. 

A really smart dude by the name of Albert Bandura coined this term. Here’s how I would explain his definition of self-efficacy. You know that feeling you get when you do something and you rock at it and you walk away going, “Man, I kinda kicked butt today,” and then you sleep really well at night? Yeah, that’s self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is the feeling of mastery over something. It is the feeling like what you did matter. It is not the feeling of enjoyment over something. You can feel mastery over something and not like it. In fact, you might really hate that thing you are a master over some days. The thing that gives you self-efficacy is not only mastery, but also a sense that what you are doing really matters. It is a sense that tomorrow, someone will wake up a little more at peace because you helped them in some way. 

Now that’s a good feeling. 

So what happens to that feeling when you no longer have to work? What are you the master over when you choose the easy buck? And who breathes easier tomorrow because of the work you did for them today? It’s a critical question we probably rarely ask, or at least don’t ask enough. 

Dorothy Sayers, a good friend of the wickedly smart and funny C.S. Lewis, once wrote an essay on work. In her essay, she ragged on the shoddy work quality of the post-WWII Allied countries who began making cruddy products because they wanted to capitalize on a quicker buck after the war. She said that one who truly pursues the idea of vocation doesn’t just do any kind of work – they do good work done well. 

Perhaps what we should be asking isn’t, “Would you like to work less and earn more?” That’s what the Allies said after WWII and it produced cruddy work for a while. Perhaps what we should be asking is, “Would you like to earn less but serve more?” If you say “yes,” then it really doesn’t matter where you work. It matters how you work. If you want to work less and serve more, you are in the perfect position to wake up tomorrow and know that the work you did today helped someone else breath easier.

And that feels pretty nice.

KB

I tack on a post-script thought for us bloggers, artists, and content creators. John Green from the VlogBrothers on YouTube had a great video about making money on the web and I link it here for you to enjoy. He asks what the real motivation of making money is in regards to ads. I’ve been to a number of blogs lately interested in making money through the use of ads, services, products, etc. Heck, I sell stuff on here. But perhaps we should take a step back from time to time and ask why we want that money. Is it to get paid producing quality content or is it about producing quality content and hopefully getting paid? The way you answer that matters a lot. I won’t condemn any money-making practices here; I may utilize one of them one day. Hopefully, though, this video will provide some inspiring, self-reflective thoughts. No matter what, friends, may we do good work and do good work done well.

KB