Paying a Friend If I Don’t Publish an Article a Day
Give up a day’s pay or produce a story.
I have a 6-hour day job. I could’ve picked more hours but didn’t need the money. I thought the rest of my time was better spent if I developed and made into extra money any of the thousand ideas for side hustles I have had.
But you know me, a human — nice to meet you. Procrastination, distraction, and taking things for granted are a thing; things you keep doing even when you are aware of it destroying you. You hate so and again suffer existentially because of it. And still keep doing it.
I got pissed off at that. And the fact I was able to produce at a day job for another guy’s project but not my own.
They are paying me because whatever I do is profitable. Which means I’m not even receiving all the money out of the work I make.
Anti-capitalist it sounds. But I honestly think something they must deserve for creating the infrastructure and providing the supervision to make me do what I’m not able to get myself to do: keep me accountable and producing.
A day I don’t go to work is 6 hours of money I don’t see on my paycheck. I wake up in the morning, go and endure some hard work and get through crazy stress for that not to happen.
How much is the money I’m losing an hour when I don’t work on personal projects that have the potential for millions?
When they pay off I’ll see, I can’t know now. But I’ll have to work to know, and not knowing makes me not feel it real and therefore not work towards it. It seems like I’m the cat in the box and I’m fucking dead regardless.
So I’m not doing extra hours at the day job because I wanted to use that time for this project of indeterminate value an hour. But I choose to slack off in that time instead.
How can I make myself get to feel the loss of that potential hour wage I’m losing for not working on my projects?
Paying for the right to slack off, I figured.
So I’m giving a friend of mine — an orderly one in particular — the amount of that extra money I could be making with extra hours at the day job for every day I don’t publish an article on medium. Together with the task of checking I’ve published, and that it’s not bullshit.
So far he has made a few bucks from my on perspective article I published at ~1:45 in the morning of the next day I was supposed to.
This experiment has also made me discover how much of a passion for the writing activity I have. Because I’ve felt willing to buy the time needed to be able to get an article just right. And the high I get from having it right in time is no short description.
I’m not here for the money, but I know the potential for it. And, though I’m sure there must be several good ones — with my heart — I hate to read top and listicle article titles.
I would never make an article for the sake of views, claps, reads, money, or whatever. Not if in those words there’s not an idea that comes deep from my head or heart.
I’ve always written for myself that way. And although there are several things to negotiate for the sake of these ideas reaching and helping people — another huge intention— I’m confident this time constraint won’t get in the way of what I want to do.
And as soon as It does I’m sure I’ll stop it altogether.
Thank you for reading. And follow me for some thought-provoking posts, once or so, a day.
PS: The idea of giving money to a friend to keep me accountable I got from a Bonus Tip on this article.
