In this day and age of economic instability, augmenting one’s income by doing part-time gigs is not unusual. I know a lot of people who are into part-time work just to have extra money on hand. Some are engaged in selling financial products such as mutual funds and insurance while others do freelancing jobs e.g. consulting, website development. I did a couple of freelancing work in the past but I wasn’t able to sustain it because of the demands of my day job. Fortunately, thanks to the ever growing internet-based jobs, I am able to squeeze in more freelance work now without subjecting myself to  another bout of fixed working hours.

Looking back, it was tough to juggle two jobs especially if both are office based. Imagine having to shuttle yourself from one office to another. Sooner than you thought, you’ll eventually overextend yourself and suffer burnout in no time. The money earned from the part-time gigs will consequently go to medical bills. It’s simply not worth it.

I didn’t give up, of course. I committed foul-ups and wrong decisions in my search for the perfect part-time job. I did multilevel marketing, sold health products and other consumer items which are all on a recruitment slash referral basis. The people who recruited me call it multilevel marketing. But I think it’s just an embellished word for pyramid networking. Unfortunately, I didn’t earn a single cent from those so called business opportunities. I invested, lost money and wasted my time.
And so I continued to research on other ways to create additional streams of income. Passive or otherwise, I gave it a shot. This time, however, I have become wiser. I did not shell out any money nor paid any joining fees to get me started.

In 2000, I was introduced to blogs. If my memory serves me right, the first blog I read was using a diary-x platform. Blogger, Wordpress were unheard of, as far as I’m concerned. Well, I’m not really sure if it was indeed called diary-x. All I remember was that it was some sort of a journal written by a doctor. It was not at all related to medicine nor health but rather about his philandering and other sexual mischief. Come to think of it, he may not be a doctor at all. Anyway, going back to blogs, I love to write and getting myself published was such an ecstatic feeling back then. It allowed me to flesh out my thoughts in the virtual world. And it has set ablaze my passion for words more. To cut the story short, I put up my own blog.

The blog has become my stepping stone to freelancing. Years have passed after reading my first blog and I have, so far, created three blogs under my turf. It opened new opportunities for me. It allowed me to make money from simply doing what I love best and that is writing.

I consider writing as career. Part-time for now. But who knows, I may end up embracing my part-time gigs full-time. Hopefully, soon.