What a freelancing, poor writer can be grateful about on a payment day and the money has not come, yet

I am a freelance writer. Today is the payment day, but the money has not come yet. Sitting in my little room, writing and waiting, I started recalling me 2 years ago.

2 years ago, I was working as a journalist for one of the most popular sites in Vietnam. I had money and a stable, well-perceived job.

Since I was at university, I have always dreamed about movies and screenwriting. But this dream seemed unreachable at the time I finished school. With the ambition of earning handsome money in mind and being successful, I decided to work as a business journalist.

The result? It was a good fine and even exciting in the beginning, until I felt worse and worse day after day. Everybody around me was good, but I was drowning in that fast-paced and demanding job. I was exhausted. Every day, after leaving the office, I was left with a burden, a feeling of hopelessness, coming from no-where. One day, when I was too devastated with the job, I started thinking: Maybe this job is not for me.

It took me months after that first thought to bravely quit the job. Now I am working as a freelance writer. I write book reviews for a publishing company. It is a nice job. Books come to the door each month, and I earn a little amount of money by writing book reviews. The point is, with this job, I have enough time to invest in my screenwriting career.

Regularly, money comes late, like today. And I am broke. As usual, I start to swear, feeling pity for myself: A hopeless, poor, and unknown writer, sitting in the smallest room you can find in the city, waiting for the penny while keeping writing, not knowing the screenplay could be accepted in the future or not.

But, you know what, today, a feeling of gratitude appears. What I am writing is a screenplay inspired by me 2 years ago. During writing this, all of a sudden, I realize that I have what I hopelessly dream about 2 years ago.

A slower pace life, quality-article to focus on, and a screenplay in progress.

When reading and researching about my miserable past job, I understand that in different stages of life, we normally have this while losing something other. In the past, I had money while being miserable. Now, I have no money while having the opportunity to chase the screenwriting dream. The money will come, maybe tomorrow or the day after. A very little amount, but I know it will come.

I am a 25-year-old, young, and aspiring author, who recognizes everything always seems not to be as it seems. No career is easy. No job is full of laughers. Some months, life seems extremely tough. But we always have more than we think.

Right now, I’m here in a cozy room, writing my screenplay. It’s raining outside. I choose to be happy with what I’ve chosen to have, then let go of any other.