The First & Last Year of my Career (2006-07)

This post is basically a continuation from my last one where I talk about my background and how I have arrived at the point I find myself now.

The Entrepreneurial Spirit Stirs

The first six months of my job were great. I devoured programming books to get myself caught up with all I had missed in the years between 1998 and 2006. I also started exercising and eating cleanly and I lost a lot of the weight that I had piled in the previous few years. I began to make improvements in every aspect of my life. After about 6 months, things had settled down. I had fixed my career, I had fixed my weight issues, and I started to ask myself the questions “what’s next?”, “what else is there?”

I started to get bored with work. I began to get irritated by the inconvenience of having to be in the office between 9 and 5.30 every day. I started to dream up ideas of the kind of software that I would really like to write. I looked at where my life might be in 5 or 10 years time and as long as I stayed in a day job, I couldn’t see my life being any different in the future to how it was at that point. I wanted more. More than any J.O.B. could give me.

The Difference Between the End and the Means

Ever since I threw my career away in 1998, I have lived in regret. I wanted it back and when I went to University my sole driving purpose throughout those three years was to refresh my programming skills, make a clean start and get myself back into the software development job market, and that’s exactly what I did. But when I started to get those feelings after six months I was puzzled. I couldn’t understand why I was no longer happy in my job when I seemingly had exactly what I wanted. Then it hit me – software development is not the END, it’s just a MEANS. It’s a skill, a talent, a hobby. It’s what I can DO with that talent that really matters.

My employer can replace me with another programmer who will do my job and nothing will change. The world will not be a worse place because I left my job. But once I branch out on my own and I can start using my programming talents to create unique products then I can make a difference. It may not be much of one but that doesn’t matter. I am one of those people who has to have a goal, I need to be always moving forward. While I was at Uni I had a crystal clear goal in my head but when I reached it I didn’t set myself another one so I inevitably wondered what was next and had no answer.

Transitioning from Employment to Self Employment

My first thought was to set up a business part time and once I was earning enough to pay the bills I would quit my job. Sounds easy right? But of course that was naive thinking and I should have known better as I have been in business for myself full time for many years and I know that it does not come with just a few hours a week.

So my second plan was instead to save up an emergency fund that would cover 6 months living expenses. I figured I could make a business work in 6 months. That was probably naive too but that doesn’t matter as shortly after this decision I received a financial blow which meant that with the money I now had at the end of the month to save, it would take me 41 years before I would have enough money in my emergency fund!

I could see only two possibilities… The first was that I just carry on in my job and work really, really hard on my side business. Maybe in a year or two it would be earning enough to at least soften the blow when I quit. But by this point I had been thinking about my future so much that the idea of wasting two years of my life in a job I did not enjoy seemed like something I just could not endure.

My only other option was to simply quit! Yes, I would go into masses of debt while I got myself setup but hopefully I can pay it back eventually. I have a very different outlook on life now than I did a few years ago. I believe that if you have a burning desire for something and you persist with it and never give up, you cannot possibly fail.

I hope I’m right or I’m in for a world of pain!

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