If I Were a Rich Man, da-da-dee-dee-dee-dee-da-da-da-da-dee-dee-dee-dee-do …

It is said in the Bible that it is easier for a needle to enter the eye of a camel than no that’s not right. It is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a rich man than nope. It is easier for a rich man to enter a camel no I imagine the camel would kick up a fuss so that can’t be it.

Anyway, there’s something about not getting into heaven if you’re rich. That’s a horribly blanket statement, no? What does that say to all of us trying to earn some decent wonga? Stop trying?

It does make you think, though. As a freelance writer, what exactly am I writing for? Getting rich from writing is obviously a genuine possibility, but it’s not going to happen for everyone, and is that really the aim? I mean, how many words do you have to write at $2 per hundred words to get your first Ferrari? Oo, let’s work that one out – LOTS.

Busy fool

It’s now been over a month since my last blog. I’ve not been away; I’ve been busy. There’s another saying that springs to mind about “busy fools”. I feel like that. It’s very difficult when you have bills to pay and mouths to feed to power down and take less on. If you do so, then the stress of working too hard is easily replaced by the stress of not earning enough. It’s Catch 22.

Tumblemoose has recently written a couple of spot-on blogs about burnout, and we can all learn from what he says. I think one of the key issues is being able to recognise when you are doing more than you need to because you have set your expectations too high. Are you working to pay the bills and make a little extra on top, or are you slogging away because you’ve decided you must hit a certain level of earnings to consider yourself successful?

I’ve mentioned this before – that attaining success can distract you from the truly important things in life. Personally, I’ve had a real love-hate relationship with my past struggles for success. I’ve loved having goals to go for and those moments when I have felt I was nearing them, but I have truly hated the feelings of inadequacy for the distance still left to travel, my impotence to move any faster, and my sense that I “deserved” to get there quicker than anyone else.

Reaching your writing goals can be a noble aim, just so long as you don’t become blind to the signs that your journey is perhaps becoming bone-shakingly bumpy.

I always remember a story a friend of mine once told me regarding riches. He’s a very successful entrepreneur who made plenty of money whilst still very young, but couldn’t opt out because … he didn’t know why, he just couldn’t. He ended up having some heart issues whilst still in his 30s and developing a stress-related facial tic which he still has.

It’s all Greek to me

Here’s the fable: A rich guy goes on holiday to a sleepy Greek island and every day sees a smiling fisherman go out for two or three hours and return with his catch. After a week, the rich guy has to say something; he just can’t work out why the fisherman looks so happy and thinks he must be an idiot. He goes to him as he returns to the beach, and says: “I see you go out every day for a few hours and can’t help thinking you’re not working right. How about you treble your hours and treble your catch? Then you can make more money. Then after a while you can buy another boat and employ someone else to help you. You can then both go out for seven or eight hours a day, and with the extra money you can buy another boat, and so on. Give it ten or fifteen years of hard graft and you can maybe get to the point that you can have a fleet of boats working for you, then you can kick back, only go out fishing for a couple of hours a day for fun, and spend more time with your family.”

The fisherman smiled. “Like now?”

(He was a well-educated Greek fisherman who was fluent in English, okay?)