5 Ways You Reclaim your Dignity by Working Online

photo: plasticwool

Many corporate work environments are designed to strip you of your dignity and make you into an obedient lapdog.

In such workplaces, other people control your time, money, and space, sometimes to ridiculous extremes. I once worked in a place where we were forbidden to have more than two personal items on our desks. Another place forced employees to attend an all-day company picnic on a Saturday–with no extra pay, of course. Then there was the place that rewarded employees for catching each others mistakes. (I’m sure that didn’t encourage people to sneak around sabotaging their colleagues’ work.)

As you crawl your way up the corporate ladder, you may have the illusion that you’re gaining more freedom. Perhaps you’ve been promoted, and you now have partial control over your subordinates’ time, money, and space. Whoop-dee-doo. There’s a big difference between being a good little prisoner who gets to blow the whistle and getting out of jail.

After I started earning money online, I realized something in me had shifted. I can’t imagine ever returning to a traditional work environment. It seems almost surreal when I think about it now. I expect it’s the same for most people who have left the rat race to work for themselves and generate an income online. Once you’ve reclaimed your humanity, you can’t go back.

For me, working online isn’t about making a boatload of money or living a life of luxury. (Good thing too, because that hasn’t happened yet!) It’s about the choices. Every time you make a choice for yourself, be it ever so minor, you assert your human dignity. Even failure can be an act of personal power when you take full responsibility for your choices. It’s as simple as that. Five examples:

1. Continual Growth

Meeting self-imposed deadlines. Having the courage to approach a stranger for business. Working through the night in between baby feedings. Saying no to other people’s projects to pamper your own brainchild instead. Failing again and again and becoming stronger every time. Spending so much time with yourself that the sound of your own thoughts makes you crazy. Turning the craziness into something marvelous.

Working in an office is coloring inside the lines. Working online is fingerpainting.

photo: paurian

2. Supercalifragilisticexdiversidocious

Doing an hour of this and an hour of that. Watching to see what earns more money or appeals to you more. Doing more of that thing. Trying new things for the hell of it. Watching seeds you planted two years ago explode into torrential streams of passive income.

It would be impossible to do this in a traditional job structure. Can you imagine going to ten different offices every day and working on completely different things at each one? When you work online, you can diversify as much as you want.

3. Experience that Doesn’t Suck

When I was in college, I was advised to seek out internships to gain experience. When I attended my first business conference at my first post-graduation job, I was told it would be good experience. Ten years later, at my last “normal” job, I was suckered into working for free on weekends with the same line: it will be good experience.

Who decided that experience working in an office is more valuable than other kinds of experience? I personally don’t enjoy the experiences of making small talk at conferences, listening to watercooler gossip, giving presentations about topics I don’t care about, following someone else’s plan for my day, trying to explain to technologically-challenged middle management the difference between a Photoshop mockup and an HTML page, having to call in sick, and working with people who are rude or unpleasant. Yet the corporate world bombarded me with experiences like that. And although I became good at navigating those situations, which I guess is what’s meant by “gain experience,” my skills only prepared me for more of the same. Moreover, the harder I worked, the more I was expected to work.

Unlike traditional jobs, the better you become at working online, the less time you have to spend doing it–and the more time you can spend experiencing life.

4. Owning Your Money

If you work for a company, the size of your paycheck is influenced by the overall budget. Unfortunately, you don’t get a voice when it comes to allocating funds. Nobody asks you if you’d prefer to have an extra $100 in your pocket instead of attending some boring Christmas party. Nobody tells you that the reason you don’t get a free bus pass this year is that management opted for double-glazed windows in the new office instead. You’re like a child being given an allowance for doing their chores.

When you work online, you get to control the pursestrings instead of passively accepting your allowance. Would you rather invest more money into your business this month? Or would you rather go on vacation with your family first? Would you rather spend your profits on a new computer or hire a virtual assistant? It’s your choice.

5. Morning Sex

Or mid-afternoon sex if that’s your cuppa. Life is fleeting. Embrace the one you love, and do not hurry, because working online means no impatient boss, no timecard, no sinking stomach as the traffic jam unwinds.

Western wind, when wilt thou blow,
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!–Anon

photo: Flavio Ronco

Addendum

Not all corporate jobs are detestable. If your office job provides you with personal freedom and autonomy, I’m happy for you. This article is not for you. It’s for the people who feel stuck, who have lost touch with their own desires and dreams, and who dread going to work every day. I know how you feel. Hang it there – it doesn’t have to be that way. This article is also for the people who have successfully transitioned to working online. You rock!

If you belong to either of those groups, I would love to hear your stories. Share them in the comments.