I'm tired.

I'm really, really tired.

I've been working non-stop the last three weeks with two big writing project back to back. 123 tasks later, I'm genuinely fried. The last three days have been the worst, with a collective amount of 10 hours of sleep in 72 hours of operating. I need to shut down, but I can't. I just landed a third project, and the demand is sporadically hot. I could go a week and half with no work just as quickly. So I have to work when the "iron is hot," so to speak.

For the outsider, freelancing just on a money basis always seems attractive, almost shady. It's a sizable amount of money coming in that doesn't seem to have any liabilities against it. Since, outsiders have no idea what amount of energy, time, work and similar goes into it, they can't relate to the value of that payment; it just seems like getting a free pot of cash as if you won it big on a slot machine in Vegas all of a sudden.

The reality is, for every $10 earned, there's probably least and hour to an hour and a half of work. It doesn't shake out that way cost-wise because for most freelancers our time, energy, resources and similar are already a sunk cost. We work more than one job, usually with one platform as our safety net, and freelancing on top to earn extra income. Retirees use their pension or investment withdrawals as their base cash flow, and the freelancing fills in the gaps. I hardly know anyone in the business who is 100 percent self-sufficient on their freelancing work every month. But the outsider has no relation to that.

So, after a typical full work-day, freelancers on average will crank out another 4-5 hours at night, as well as a hour during lunch to make things happen. Weekends are a full-day and then some. Last weekend for example, I put in a 12-hour due to a coming deadline and keeping things on track with the available time. I was tempted to pull an all-nighter Saturday night, but I literally fell apart at 1am and slept for 6 hours instead. So there is no weekend off when things are humming. Ironically, I only get weekends off from any work when there is no client work coming in, i.e. famine time. 

Income is quickly spent on living and costs that already occur and have to be financed in anticipation of payments pending. Add in the insult of income taxes; the government does nothing to help freelancers and small businesses and, more often, gets in the way with regulation and barriers designed to protect bigger companies. So to then be taxed on anywhere from 20-25% of one's hard-earned income for nothing in return is salt in the wound repeatedly. But, it is a necessary evil to operate.

I see young people coming into the workforce right now, complaining on reddit forums about how are they supposed to live on their wages, how they will never get ahead and deserve far more, etc. All I can say is that waiting for someone to hand out a nice automatic paycheck isn't going to happen. The practice of having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet is only growing. I don't argue life is not fair. It's a real bitch and only gets harder over the years. Yes, some people come into the game totally at an advantage with connections, rich family, big bank account etc. And many do not as well. There are far more have-nots than haves, which is why companies can pay so little for hard work. So, the lesson here, is to find a way out of the rut and don't depend on a company paycheck to take care of everything.

But, yes, it's hard work. 

I'm tired.

And tomorrow I have to find more work again.