Uncle Homer's Wisdom: Doing What You Love!

One of our cats, Uncle Homer, is an accomplished hunter. Each day, he spends hours in the fields and woods outside our house, searching for varmints and other tasty treats before coming in for the night. When he is feeling particularly generous, he'll share his kill and bring us the wing of a sparrow or one half of a mole's butt as his contribution to the household. We've never really done much with these gifts besides throw them out, but I have had thoughts of sending a nice haunch of chipmunk, giftwrapped, to the guy who does my taxes, come April. You know... just to liven him up a bit!

The other day, as I pondered ways to get a video camera into a small box alongside my cat's latest kill so I might witness my hapless CPA friend receiving such a present, I came upon a great observation to share with my bloggers: Despite the fact that his family never really has need of the dead things he brings in, Uncle Homer has a real sense of purpose and loves the job he does.

I hope we all feel that way, and if we don't, maybe it is our creativity that needs a kick in the pants.

When my husband and I married and subsequently married our fortunes, we found that we not only had more money together, but also more debt. Now, as of this writing, I am still not a billionaire and I was definitely further from being one two years ago when this story began. Paying off everything was always the goal, but doing so up front wasn't a possibility. Like most couples, we found we could sell a few things and get rid of some tiny debts in order to go full-swing into attacking bigger ones such as school and the car, but the reality was, earning more income had to be a real priority for us.

Now, my job's of a rare type: It's great and gives me a ton of happiness and inspiration to do further excellent work, so leaving it just wasn't on the table. I was therefore going to have to get creative and find ways to make money during my off-hours. I did the usual and made some calls trying to drum-up anything-you-need freelance design opportunities, but it struck me when I was about three weeks into late nights doing some hum-drum email marketing for a picky client that I was not passionate about the work. I knew then that I had to finish the project and stop leaving myself open for jobs of a similar nature, and I had to do it yesterday or I would surely end up the same way I fear the guy who does my taxes is going to go: done in by stagnation.

Dan Miller wrote in his blog a few weeks back, the story of ikigai (pronounced "icky-guy"... like the one who does my taxes!) and it's a quick read so I definitely encourage you to check it out. If you Google the term, you'll see that ikigai is Japanese word that means "a reason for being". We don't really have a word like that in English, but maybe we should make one, or at least steal Japan's, for it was ikigai I was missing out on, and ikigai I needed to find with my freelance.

We are most creative when we engage in things we love. Following this principle, working slowly but surely, I focused on the things I loved and for the first time since taking the additional income plunge, I really sat down and made a plan:

I love comic books, but there had to be more than just making them which could get me some dough, right? Matter-of-fact, comic books themselves are not cheap to produce, and in the past, my luckiest days have been to break even on them and to proudly proclaim that I did it without living in my mother and father's basement.

So if not just making comic books, then, what else do I love? How about counseling? That's always fun! Meeting new and intersting people and telling them they're going to be okay and their lives will get better and no, God has not been punishing you for making beautiful art out of naked people is so very spiritually rewarding. Surely, I reasoned, there had to be a way to combine the two!

You'll laugh, but it took me months to figure out just how I was going to combine the elements of art with teaching. That's okay, because the tutorials I eventually came up with are, I believe, some of my best work. I started testing the waters by writing a few things for the website ComicsCrux.com, and when those went over well, did a few more, then a few more...

Eventually, I was on a roll and so was my plan. I can now say that I very much look forward to releasing the fruits of these labors, online, in 2013. As for the things I've already done, such as the freebie tutorials posted on other sites, they have given me several new clients interested in more in-depth knowledge of the topics I posted for free, ideas for new material to use as premium content, and an already substantial trickle of residual income, besides. When you work at what you love, money tends to flow freely. This is not just some magical coincidence - when we're optomistic about our work, we are quicker to see opportunities to profit. Too, I like to think God rewards those of us who use our passion, when we have the courage to go after it.

In this very first day of the New Year, think about the work you do, and what you love about it. Also think about what you don't love and perhaps meditate on more ways to bring in the things that you love doing, into your average work day. I guarantee the rewards will surprise you!