Maybe give a little thought to the supposed stability and desirability of a full-time job in today’s economy — especially in the U.S. Companies have layoffs, restructurings, or just close. Your full-time job turns into no job with no backup plan. All your eggs were in one basket. Is that more secure than piecing together a multi-layered career with several clients and a couple of different kinds of things you can do? One client goes away, you still have others. In certain ways, you’re less vulnerable.

Consider, too, the value of “benefits.” A full-time employee is probably already paying most of the cost of health insurance. These days, it’s cheaper and easier to buy your own than ever. Whatever else is being offered by your employer is in some way coming out of your pay.

There’s also a certain freedom to an independent professional career. Work when and where you choose. Work with clients you want to work with.

For what it’s worth, I worked full-time for a newspaper for 22 years — a newspaper that has now laid off almost everyone I ever knew there. I then worked for a magazine that closed after two years. For the past eight years I’ve worked as an independent, and enjoy my multi-faceted job as much as any I’ve had.

I’m not saying it’s for everybody, but the balance between the desirability of single-employer full-time work and multi-employer independent work is not so cut-and-dried.