Day jobs: the argument against

I read this excellent post this morning by our friend James Turner. James is also a subscriber here, and is one of the many people who read Jamie’s list who aren’t musicians — there are more of you out there than I thought there would be!

And, similarly, I subscribe to James’s daily emails, although I don’t think I’m the target audience? Sometimes people just have a knack for sharing and sparking interesting thoughts, and when I stumble across one of them I pounce on it. The crap-to-gold ratio is super high in The Age of the Influencer.

Anyway! James’s post today started with this quote:

“My only goal is to basically not have to go back to employment.”

The quote is actually from somebody else who James is himself quoting, and I encourage you to read the whole post, which is short and thought-provoking. But the pull quote was so resonant for me. Because, wow, have I been there. I worked day jobs for a decade before I realized that I could make a living doing freelance music work. And I really hated it! It was a dark time in my life.

So I just want to say: if you’re reading this, and you’re working a day job, and you really wish you weren’t: GET OUT.

Seriously, figure out how to get out of it. You’re clearly meant not to be doing that!

I know that this might feel somewhere between hard and impossible — like, where do you start? And, I get it. I spent a decade in that space, wishing every single day that I could just work on music, but instead selling my labor to an exploitative boss.

But then I got a foot in a door, and everything grew from there, which from talking subsequently with other music professionals seems to be the way it works for everyone who makes that transition. For me that foot-in-the-door experience was starting to do live sound in sketchy nightclubs — and then my career evolved from there.

Sure, some chunks of that career evolution sucked; no job is perfect. But at least I was working generally in the area I wanted to be working in — and I can’t overstate what a positive change that was. I woke up every day with a sense of purpose and spiritual alignment, and the satisfaction that I was building something for myself, however small.

The point is, it’s possible. And if that’s something you want, you can have it too. Yes, making the transition might be hard. Many things worth achieving are. Go for it. You only live once. 🖤

(I would LOVE to know, for the people on here who do something musically-related for their full-time income: how did you make the transition away from normal employment? Please hit reply and let me know how you did it! I will share responses in subsequent posts; I think that hearing your story would be incredibly valuable and inspiring for other people who are trying to figure this out for themselves.)

Diy forever — jamie