Your Career Is Not A Life Sentence

The Daily Stoic for July 31st. “Your Career Is Not A Life Sentence”.

“How disgraceful is the lawyer whose dying breath passes while at court, at an advanced age, pleading for unknown litigants and still seeking the approval of ignorant spectators.”
—SENECA, ON THE BREVITY OF LIFE, 20.2

Today is my Saint’s Day. Ignacio de Loyola, 31st of July, according to the Spanish calendar. I’m not a religious person, but in the south of Spain, where I am from, this date is as important as our birthday.

Today, I took the day off.

That might sound like something normal for you. It’s a special occasion, so you take the day off. You are a digital nomad and entrepreneur after all, so what’s the problem?

Your Career Is Not A Life Sentence

As I discussed some days ago, sometimes it’s difficult to find a good balance between work and entertainment when you are a micropreneur. Being in the early stages of a business that’s starting to work, and being a workaholic myself, it’s even more difficult.

However, finding this balance is necessary. Some days ago, my partner and I were talking about that. Even if we know we are privileged -we have no fixed hours, we travel the world and work remotely on our own businesses-, we decided that we are spending too much of our lives working instead of … well, living.

So we decided to start worrying less about work and focusing on enjoying life more. Today was a nice step in that direction.

You always hear the sentence “work smarter, not harder”. But that sentence is usually repeated mindlessly -as with most inspirational quotes- by guys who want to get followers on Instagram. As with digital nomads, bloggers and affiliate market gurus, you need to understand there is a lot of smoke and mirrors.

Being a solopreneur is hard, putting together a business that works is harder, and finding the right balance between work and life while doing so is even harder. Don’t wait to enjoy life until you have completed a task, or your business is working. Enjoy a little bit every day. Don’t just work smarter. Work and live in equal parts.

Conclusion

Today’s Daily Stoic, “Your Career Is Not A Life Sentence”, discusses a topic that’s been very present for me lately. Finding a right balance between work and life, not living to work, but working to live.