Asking Questions

Often the person asking a question reveals more than the question being asked. For example, the person who asks how you can do some offbeat sounding task for a living is often the equivalent of someone slapping themselves in the forehead and going "Why didn't I think of that? or Why didn't I ever realize that I had many more choices than I thought I had?" I use the phrase off beat sounding in this article but we all decide what that means.

Of course, what is offbeat to one person is the main point to someone else. After all, who decides that helping a corporation sell their new flavor of potato chips, corn chips or lite beer is more important than being an energy healer, a psychic, a massage therapist or a dog walker? We all know that the person who helps market ranch flavored chips will make tons more money, but is what they are doing really much more important? Of course, in the bigger picture, our society holds the belief that marketing ranch flavored chips is mainstream and that reiki healing is offbeat, but that's all a matter of perspective.

It is probably impossible to get accurate info on all these different things, but the more the corporate world keeps merging and acquiring and moving jobs to countries with cheaper labor, then more and more people will find that their only good choice left will be to create their own small business. And some of them may find themselves doing something offbeat. If being offbeat or odd or unusual is all in the eye of the beholder, then the only remaining question is whether you can make enough money to live on. If the answer to that question is yes, then being a psychic or a wedding singer or someone who travels around doing Renaissance Faires or being a pet sitter and walking other people's dogs is simply an array of different choices. There are some people who open a restaurant so that they can make money off their cooking, and some people who cook for their clients in the clients homes. There are people who do singing telegrams and people who do body painting. There are people who are caregivers for the old and the ill. There are people who make costumes and those who make and sell their own music, books and art off their own websites.

Even though some of you may be smiling as you contemplate doing any of these things for your income, the joy is genuine. If you have even been in the situation where some corporation told you that they suddenly no longer needed you and sending out your resumes got as many results as tossing paper airplanes into a black hole, one of these offbeat choices may be your future.

Yes, the short and simple answer to this question is that we make up all the answers.

Once we have that perspective, we have more joy in life.