I spent T-24 months->T-9 months asking myself the same questions. I've struggled most of my life trying to find work that felt worth doing. I don't expect that I have any answers, but I can share my experience.
I'm currently the sole person doing software engineering (which I have experience doing, but no formal educational qualifications) for a department of about 50 people at Apple.
I really enjoy what I'm doing every day; the problems are fun, and they give me insight into the questions that underlie my super-secret research project. The existence of a super-secret research project is what makes it less a job, and more of an adventure. That's been key a to my happiness. I'm working my way toward a deep understanding of how information flows through systems made up of both humans and machines. At this point, I experience many aspects of my day-to-day job as the actions of an archaeologist, sifting through the dirt, finding the intriguing clues.
Working for oneself is awesome, but there are things that have to be in place to make it work well. It requires either excellent marketing skills or an existing network of people who appreciate your work and have the desire and means to procure it. That's the part that I've never been good at manufacturing, so I don't have anything useful to say about it. But I've always leaned toward the types of work that people I knew needed, and that's helped tremendously.
The only other thing I'd say is this: if you don't have the freedom to not earn any money for six months to a year, it's very hard to start any kind of self-employment. If you don't have that freedom, then it's really very much a matter of cold, hard dollars. How low can you make all of your expenses. As anyone in the startup world will tell you, the main factor for success is the length of your runway. How long can you spend gathering customers before you run out of money.
It's a problem I've spent a lot of years thinking about, working within the confines of, and restructuring my life to better address the realities of. It's not easy, especially at first, but in my case, the upsides have proven to be huge.
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I'm currently the sole person doing software engineering (which I have experience doing, but no formal educational qualifications) for a department of about 50 people at Apple.
I really enjoy what I'm doing every day; the problems are fun, and they give me insight into the questions that underlie my super-secret research project. The existence of a super-secret research project is what makes it less a job, and more of an adventure. That's been key a to my happiness. I'm working my way toward a deep understanding of how information flows through systems made up of both humans and machines. At this point, I experience many aspects of my day-to-day job as the actions of an archaeologist, sifting through the dirt, finding the intriguing clues.
Working for oneself is awesome, but there are things that have to be in place to make it work well. It requires either excellent marketing skills or an existing network of people who appreciate your work and have the desire and means to procure it. That's the part that I've never been good at manufacturing, so I don't have anything useful to say about it. But I've always leaned toward the types of work that people I knew needed, and that's helped tremendously.
The only other thing I'd say is this: if you don't have the freedom to not earn any money for six months to a year, it's very hard to start any kind of self-employment. If you don't have that freedom, then it's really very much a matter of cold, hard dollars. How low can you make all of your expenses. As anyone in the startup world will tell you, the main factor for success is the length of your runway. How long can you spend gathering customers before you run out of money.
It's a problem I've spent a lot of years thinking about, working within the confines of, and restructuring my life to better address the realities of. It's not easy, especially at first, but in my case, the upsides have proven to be huge.
Good Luck. Let me know what I can do to help.