You can spend your days as you like

If you work a 9–5 job for long enough, you might get used to having just a few hours each weekday to spend as you wish.

This certainly happened to me; I recall being pretty damn excited if I had three free hours after work. Three whole hours! That was enough time to cook a healthy dinner, do some laundry, and read a sizable chunk of a book. Suh-weet!

While I got used to having so little time off, it never felt right. I wanted to decide what to do on any given day.

It should be possible to go to a bookstore for a whole afternoon if you want to. It should be possible to have a lazy day at home if that's what you need. It should be possible to visit your parents on a whim, just because you feel like it.

I wasn't under the illusion that money would rain from the sky if I simply did whatever I felt like doing at all times. But I wanted that freedom to spend my days as I liked and it was plain to me that it was possible to make a living while retaining that freedom.

Many people live like this. People who work in all sorts of industries and who live in all sorts of places. And, yes, people at many different levels of income. You don't have to be a multimillionaire to be able to control how you spend your days.

You don't have to accept that someone else controls the bulk of your time. It's not a question of whether you can obtain the freedom; it's only a question of how.

Yours,

— Peter