I quit ‘the dream’ of freelancing to return to a 9–5.
Wait, isn’t it the other way around?
It was six years ago, when I jumped the 9–5 ship for the bright and shiny freelance life. Like the Titanic, nobody could have warned me of the icebergs I was steering towards, until I was already crashing towards an icy mental breakdown.
In 2014, freelancing was really taking off. I decided to quit my full-time job and go for it.
My first client was the company I had just quit. I agreed to work for them as a contractor until they replaced me. They paid $40/hour, 30 hours a week and I managed their Facebook Ads (400+ ads — it was the account that taught me a lot of what I know about Facebook Ads). What a warm welcome into the freelance world!
At that time, only the brave entered the world of no dress code, open hours, and no coworkers. We were a self-validated crew of ‘entrepreneurs’ simply because we found quotes on Pinterest that talked about ‘hustling’ while we scoffed at peasants working their stable, 9–5 jobs with benefits and a 401k.
I had also quietly departed from the sobriety train about three months prior to leaping into the freelance world. To be fair to myself, I would also get sober again, two years before quitting freelancing, but I am sure the confidence I had at the start of…
