It has been just about a month since my last post. I had to step away for a bit to get my house in order. I have crossed the 6-month mark of being unemployed and needed to take care of a few things in order to make sure the bills continue to get paid.
The first thing I did was file for unemployment. This has been an ongoing challenge. I had to get the right documentation in place, find the right timing for everything, and take a fair bit of time to understand the rules of the game.
I have to submit a certain number of resumes a week and track everything related to searching for a job. This includes tracking my online activity related to searches and social media outreach. So, I set up a spreadsheet for tracking purposes.
The other thing I started doing was driving for Uber a couple days a week. This is a temporary solution to help offset the cost of my health care. Now that I am paying for all this on my own, I can see why people get so up in arms about the cost of these plans. It’s roughly one week’s worth of unemployment to keep the same coverage I had at my former employer.
I have also been investing some time in looking into other “gig economy” related work. What I am finding is that there is a ton of different niche apps for all types of gig work. I even found one for on-demand tech services that I am in the process of signing up for.
However, through all of this, my heart is still drawn to writing. Having not written anything in almost a month, I know this more than ever before. I need to write. I need it like breathing. If this past month has taught me anything, it’s that writing is in my blood and I must do it. It’s not about the money; it’s about my soul.
Do I hope to be able to monetize my writing at some point and make it my new career? Of course I do—that would be the ultimate win-win for me. Yet, the money is not the reason I write. I write because I truly believe it is what God put me on this planet to do. The more I ignore it, the less whole I feel.
So, not only am I going to jump back on the writing train, but I am going to do it with reckless abandon. You will certainly see the frequency of my posts increase. For now, the content will reflect my own chaotic mind. You will see a little of this and a little of that.
This is the only way I know how to figure out what it is I am supposed to be writing about. At some point I am confident God will quiet the chaos and give me a direction to go, but for now, the only thing I hear is write. So that’s what I am going to do.
I hope you stick around for the journey—if nothing else, it should be entertaining.
—Daniel