Blogging & Your Social Life
By Astrit Kita • Jan 30th, 2008 • Category: Another Night ShiftBefore I even start writing I would like to highlight the fact that I am not condoning blogging, bloggers or all of us folks that do spend a heap of our day time in front of the computers, but rather want to highlight some parts of our life that we are missing and we might just not be aware of.
Before I started blogging (which was like a year or two ago) I had a great social life and yet had my online business which was bringing me that extra revenue which could afford me many luxurious going outs, expensive clothes and what so not. But let me separate this post in Before Blogging and After Blogging.
Before Blogging
My social life was more relaxing, more going outs, more friends, more drinks and definitively less sleep during night (actually, i was almost like Dracula if not even better, live during the night and sleep during the day). Everything was so intense and my days were always full, and each of the day was different from the next one. Late night at the bars, few hours sleep early in the morning and later in the morning (after an hour or two of sleep) was already out (most likely on swimming pool, if not in another Caffee shop).
When I first started my online business I was already working full time, 5 days a week, 8 hours a day (not counting the 1 hour break). That work was taking too much of my time that I really did not had much time to really enjoy my life, thats why after ups and down and the internet skills I had since ever I decided to start a online small web hosting business which started to slow grow, then jumped into building few mini sites and use affiliate links, and all this was done during the few free hours I had (between university studies and work). This jump on making some extra bucks online gave me the freedom to reduce my working hours from full time (let me stamp it in your mind, 5 days a week 8 hours a day + 1 hour break) to part time work (4 days a week 6 hours a day) and still making the same money as I used to when I worked full time, but huh I got whole 3 free days just for myself.
I knew it was going to work out the extra 3 free days I had into increasing my online revenue and enjoy my life even better. After 4 months that I started working part time, money was no longer a issue, but I liked to keep the work for one or another reason (mainly because I had a scheduled week and some of my friends were actually even my colleagues and it was fun working with them).
Just as many would become greedy for money after tasting a good amount of bucks I started to become greedy too, but not for money that much, rather for my free time. I liked so much my free time that I wanted more…and more…and more, and since I had already reached a steady income online I could permit myself to quit my part time job and have the whole free time I ever wanted. And this was my biggest mistake, all this free time turned out to slowly turn me into “internet addicted” once I started blogging.
After Blogging
With my entrance in the blogsphere almost 2 years ago blogging started to pull me closer and closer to blogging, it pulled me that close that I became addicted to internet (and not only to blogging). I started slowly to cut out the time I would spend with my friends (and for this it helped me the cold winter, I hate cold and especially going out during the winter), in other words I started to put aside my friends to spend more time my computer and together with this killing my social life. So flash preview of the Good and Bad that blogging and internet brought to me, I came to conclusion that it more hurt me (in the social life perspective) rather then helped me (I am not a big chatter, so I rather even chat online, another big minus for me?).
The Good
- Do not have to hear a work giver complaining about something
- Can wake up whenever I want and go to sleep whenever I want
- Definitively more money then having a regular day job
- More time to have a serious relationship (not that before did not had really time for serious relationship, but … I could not dedicate the time that person would have deserved so it often ended up in the bad way, and after awhile stopped to give such hopes to girls)
The Bad
- No more wild going outs every night (just occasionally now)
- No more coming back home drunk and waking up with a new chick next to me
- No more healthy laughs and doing stupid things with my friends
- Lost my body shape
- Became more lazy then what I used to be
- Wrapped up in few word - Killed my social life
You might be asking why I am bragging about this, well I am not cursing, or bragging or whining I am just coming close to reality and giving you another point of view on how things might turn out if you decided to quit your day job and make money from home, and even if you decide to do that just don’t let yourself get involved way too much and forget about your social life. Spending time to learn internet marketing, affiliate marketing and other streams of making money online will most likely get you addicted to your computer after a while. Just take a break from time to time, go out, remind yourself that there is a real whole world out there and not just the virtual one you can see through your web browser.
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