A lot of people believe they’d be the happiest humans ever if they could just start making good money via domaining… be careful what you wish for 🙂
As someone who has been earning a living online since pretty much forever, I can tell you the equation is more complicated than just worrying about the financial dimension.
When it comes to the money part, more specifically the “should I quit my job to become a full-time domainer” angle, I’ve written a post about it earlier this month.
Today, I’d like to bring something else to your attention: the emotional component of it all.
You need to be really careful which goals you chase after because even if you eventually reach them, you might just realize you’re… well, miserable.
For example, this entire idea of working from home as a domainer (or anything else, for that matter) sounds a lot more awesome than it actually is for most people.
If you’re an extrovert, I can pretty much guarantee you’ll hate everything about this lifestyle if you don’t add a *healthy* dose of human interaction to the mix.
Personally, I’m in that strange spot in the middle: not an extrovert, but not an introvert either. Therefore, I don’t need as much social interaction as an extrovert and can make this “do your own thing” lifestyle work. But since I’m not in 100% introvert territory (and, I believe, even if I would have been), I have to pay special attention to the human interaction dimension as well.
Those who have a regular job take their daily interactions with let’s say co-workers for granted. But once you don’t have that anymore, you’ll realize that “something” is missing and the dose of “something” that you need to add to your life to compensate depends on your personality.
Interactions with family members and friends, as such, become perhaps more important for those who work from home than for other people, primarily because you kind of depend on them for your social needs.
… I hope you see where I’m getting at.
There’s more to life than work or money.
If you make $x per year doing something you love and that goes along well with your personality, you can definitely be far happier than someone who makes $3x doing something he hates… as long as your basic needs are met. There’s more than enough research on this, so I consider such statements axiomatic.
Am I saying you shouldn’t work from home?
Of course not! I’m simply pointing out you need to put some serious thought into whether this really is the right choice for you 😉
