Elaich

I want to tell you what my days actually look like right now. They’re boring. They’re just about work. And I think that’s the point. I start whenever I wake up. First thing, I make my bed. Then I stacked a few more habits on top of that one. I go up to the gym and do a 30-minute incline walk. And like the bed, I gave myself a tiny version of it. The tiny version is just putting on my walking shoes and stepping outside the door. That’s it. I can walk out, turn around, come straight back, and still check it off as my morning walk. ...

For most of my freelancing years, I measured my success by two things. They were quietly at war with each other, and I never once stopped to notice. The first was freedom. Free to work from anywhere in the world. Free to decide when I worked and when I didn’t. Free to give as much or as little focus as I felt like giving on any given day. The second was money. ...

Three years ago I read The Great Online Game. That piece inspired me. Thinking about the internet as a big game made me excited to build a character online. I remember asking myself: What am I doing if I’m not playing this game too? What’s stopping me? I had good freelance contracts. I was making good money as a software engineer. But wasn’t the reward of building something for myself worth the risk? ...