Aaron Aiken

Yes, yes, and yes!! I, too, am avoiding the “numbers game” and am working to find my community in a natural way. These connections need to add value on both ends.

Thanks for sharing!

Aaron

Say No To Other People. Say No To Fear.

Yesterday was a Monday. Well, actually, today is Monday. But when I wrote this last week, yesterday was a Monday. Clear? Good :-)

Regardless of what day it was, it was a very boring day.

It was a day that, in all honesty, made me question three specific things about my life:

1. Why do we live in a place where it snows (and is cold, for me, 9 months out of the year)?
2. (as a follow-up: do people actually enjoy snow?)
3. Why did I stop chasing my dream of being a pilot way back when I was 21?
4. Why have I pursued other “interests” but writing I have not?

All three (I’m excluding the follow-up question about snow, but I do want to know) share the same answer:

Emotions, and Other People. (I won’t use it anywhere else in this post, but EOP is the fancy acronym…tl;dr: do not use EOP when making decisions).

That’s it.

That is what I have allowed to influence and control my life.

Emotions, and Other People.

And a really interesting thing I realized is that my wife and I reached this conclusion simultaneously. I did not talk to her, and she did not talk to me. But, one day a few weeks ago, we basically looked at each other in silence. Then said in unison, “what the hell were we thinking?”

We weren’t. I wasn’t. And that’s part of the problem.

A lack of thought. Critical thought. Thought that goes past today, and instead looks at into the realistic future.

This decision that is before me, how will it impact me in 5, 10, 15, and 20 years?

I was so focused on the present, on the immediate future, that I tossed all of my opinions, thoughts, concerns, objections, and goals out of the window.

Focusing on the present combined with the influence of Other People is a terrible mindset, and an extremely dangerous cocktail. Not to mention, very expensive.

This type of mindset leads to decision making based on emotion and/or blind trust.

An emotional situation should not be corrected with an emotional decision.

My emotions are really why I have made some terrible decisions in the past. Emotions, and the fear of other people’s opinion of me. Or, put another way, my desire to keep those around me, and close to me, happy (an emotion).

Expensive.

• Go to college (two times, and quit…both times)
• Stop writing so that I can…
• …get a “safe and secure” job
• Buy a house

In all of these areas, yes, including the house, I listened to my Emotions and Other People more than I listened to myself. And I certainly have lost myself after doing this for so many years.

(“Lost myself” seems so…1960’s. And I do not know anything about the 60’s. I guess I associate that with the hippie movement…? Anyways, I still think it applies.)

I have forgotten who I am. What I want. What I believe.

Now, thankfully, I am realizing this after ten years instead of twenty or thirty. I still have time (as much as God will give me) to begin living my adult life based on what I want, what my family wants, and what I believe.

Now, all of that being said, all is not lost.

Looking at the future, as logically and unemotionally as possible, I have dreams and goals based on my family (instead of based solely on me), and I have plenty of “material” to use in my writing (based on the decisions of my past). These are things I would not have otherwise — these are the benefits to all of my questionable decisions. This is the positive way to look at things, otherwise it is all rather depressing.

So, what is the point? Since I’m writing this to publish, what is the thing that you, the lucky reader who has made it this far in my ramblings, can take away and apply to your own life?

1. Stop making decisions based on your emotions and the opinions of other people

Well, for one, stop making decisions based on your emotions and the opinions of other people. Start making decisions based on logic, fact, and the immediate circle of people who will be impacted by your decision (i.e. your spouse, kids, and any pets you take care of).

2. Be Honest With Yourself

Be honest with yourself. We all screw up. We all make mistakes. We all have regrets. The important thing, in my opinion, is to be honest with yourself about all of this. Recognize things for what they are. Reflect on things to pull out any lessons learned. Figure out how to avoid the same mistake(s) in the future. Understand what happened and why so that you can explain it to someone else down the road. You never know how your life, and the experiences you have had in the past, will change the life of someone else in the future.

3. Don’t Kick Yourself Too Hard

Don’t be too hard on yourself. Lindsay says I am too hard on myself. I know this. I am. I put a lot of pressure on myself because of how much I have not achieved in my life, and how much work I have to do in order to correct my mistakes.

I should not do this.

There are a few exceptions, but there are only a handful of mistakes that are permanent and irreversable. It may take time to move forward and fix things, maybe more than you can fathom right now (in which case your emotions are beginning to kick in), but things can always be improved, and can always be made better.

Personally, I have points one and two down, and hopefully they stick. Number three is where I am currently struggling. I want to have a future of writing and traveling with my family. That’s it. But making that a reality is going to be…interesting. There are plenty of unknowns, road blocks (real and imagined), and doubts. But, fear of the unknown is not a good reason to stay put. Which makes me want to write out one more point for you…

4. Don’t Let Fear Stop You

Finally, don’t let fear stop you. Fear of the unknown. Fear of what might happen. Fear of opinions. Fear of failure. Fear of more mistakes. You can’t let any of that stand in your way. You must try. Whatever it is, you must try.

Remote Work Refined — A Short Personal History

I have alluded in the past about my goal of finding remote work. I’d like to take the time now to fill you in on the past fifteen years, so that my remote job search has some context for you.

High School Dreams — Yachts, Girls, Mansions, Jets

I was a pretty typical guy during high school, especially when it came to my dreams of the future. I had my objectives pictured so clearly in my mind. So did my best friend, and turns out we shared the same vision. We envisioned a flashy lifestyle.

Yachts. Girls. Mansions. Jets.

How we would get them, we had no clue, but get them we would.

(Now, we are both stuck in IT jobs and desperately trying to get out. Go figure).

Experimental 20’s — Marriage, Business, Corporate America, Failure

After high school life became very interesting.

I did a single semester at a local college. Not for me. At all.

Started taking flight lessons. Flying and being a pilot has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember. Maybe I could be a career pilot of some kind?

Long story short, for now, I didn’t finish. I got so close, but a few different things contributed to me not finishing.

As far as work during this time, I went from selling stuff on eBay for myself, to selling stuff on eBay for someone else, to managing a warehouse and handling logistics for trade show equipment. No prior experience for any of this, just learning as I go.

Next up, marry my high-school sweetheart at 21, quit the warehouse job, work for my dad, quit that, almost open a coffee bar in a corporate center, that falls through, land a call-center job and last a month there, interview well enough at an IT consulting company and get a job that I excel at and keep for 2 years.

I quickly learn that corporate America is as good a fit as college. I hate it. Every. Single. Second. So I begin the early morning and late night hustle.

I start with writing. Applying for writing jobs, looking for guest blog posting opportunities, submitting articles to magazine and news paper articles, grasping at anything I could get my hands on.

Nothing landed.

So I started a personal finance blog with my wife. We wrote new articles daily. Started a podcast. It was awesome. It was fun. It was 2008.

Just when it was getting good, we stopped. The site was probably brining in $300 per month from ads and paid posts. I was making money with my writing and I quit. I got distracted is what happened and is what stuck for the next 10 years or so…

Ok, that was 2008. Here’s what happened next until 2015 or so: -

• January of 2009 we decide we want to move. We pick Wilmington, NC. We plan a vacation there for June.
• My IT job is now technical writing…which is so boring.
• I start a business on the side selling screencasts. I do it for free to build a portfolio, and quit my job in July because I thought I could.
• November of that year we move to Wilmington.
• My business flounders once we move.
• I have to get a job and become a barista (and love it — but minimum wage is unrealistic).
• We move back to where we came from in 2010.
• More floundering. I work for my dad for a minute.
• I’m promised an internship and a job at a church. Turns out the pastor lied to me. Go figure.
• I start my own business again — this time building websites. I do pretty damn well at this. This one goes from 2011 to 2014. A good streak for me.
• Summer of 2013 — our son is born.
• December of 2013 my business bombs out and I find a job to keep finances up.
• I climb the ladder quickly. It is IT again and I’m determined to succeed.
• By January of 2015 I’m over it. But I’m not sure where to go next, so I stay. And I’m still there. But I begin actively searching for what is next. I start with writing, because that is what I love, but get distracted.
• Then, a year later, I turn 30.

Realistic 30’s — Family, Priorities, Maturing

When I turned 30 things really clicked for me. I knew for a fact that being a desk-jockey, a paper pusher, a Corporate America lifer, was not at all for me.

Sitting at a desk all day doing work for someone else kills me. It is boring. And boredom is probably one of the best ways to torture someone.

So the year I turned 30 is when I began to look at working remotely. On my own business or someone else’s. I first started looking into building a business of my own (because that has always been my dream and goal). I went down this path for 2 solid years. I experimented with niche websites, authority websites, internet marketing (scams), hand-letting, Etsy (getting desperate at this point), creating an online course teaching people how to build an online business…and then, in January of 2018, back to writing.

The foundation of those two years was very simple. I felt, and still feel, that a desk job is the worst job if I want to see my family. Evenings and weekends is not enough for me. I am entirely unsatisfied with this type of life and cannot continue any longer. I want work that I enjoy, that provides for our financial needs, gives me freedom to be with my family as much as I want to be, and also freedom to travel as much as we want to.

Writing fits all of that. Perfectly. And it is a literal full-circle back to what I was doing 10 years ago. Writing and making money at it.

Writing — My Refined Remote Work Goal and Strategy

Not only does writing fit perfectly, it is what I actually want. It’s what I have always wanted. But I became so distracted with what other people outside of my immediate family (my wife and I) thought I should be doing that I lost myself in the process.

So here I am. Once again back to writing and looking for ways to make writing a full-time thing. Hoping that all of the technical, procedural, and process oriented writing I have done for the past 5 years will help more than hinder my search.

Remote work is the ultimate goal for me. Remote work writing is the perfect scenario that I am now working on. Writing will meet the requirement of doing what I love to do. The remote part will meet the requirements of seeing my family more and allowing us to travel more as-well.

This is going to be an open-ended conclusion. I am not sure where this is going to lead, or how it will go. But I plan to document things here as I progress down the path of attempting to create a life of writing full-time, more time with my family, and hopefully traveling along the way.