After looking for several years for my dream job. I cross my path with the world of freelancing. Work from home, unlimited income, flexible timing, you are your own boss, autonomy over working hours, and choosing your own clients etc. All sounds heaven for work life. But freelancing is a deception. All that they say is not true. Freelancing is a stress machine. You become a slave of your own self. Sleepless nights, unknown clients, uncertainty if you are not working through a freelancing platform, no steady income, and higher expectations of all, greed for more and more work, and above all difficult to explain to people what do I do for a living. It turned out to be more stressful for me. Work stress increases as I tried to manage my website and freelancing platforms at once. At first, it all seems so wow but later it generates a conflict of interest and now I am always confusing whether to spend time on freelancing platform or to work on my own website. It does not only destroy your mental health or add considerable mental distress. But also a lot of physical health issues also emerge with freelancing. Your eyes are stressed, the brain is heavy and you gain a lot of weight.
Freelancing and stress
Since I have so much mental distress that I suck at time management. And it becomes so hard for me to work and complete a project amid the deadlines approaching. So freelancing holds a fair share in my anxiety. And also a source of my depression. Freelancing is a synonym for isolation. It is just me and my computer. A mug of tea/coffee, lots of packet food and literally no place I can go without my smartphone or without an internet connection. In the middle of a party or a wedding or a family gathering, you are excusing the people around you to get back on communication with your clients. And difficult to explain to people what kind of work is that? There is no vacation mode. You cannot rest or stay away from your online presence. Because if you do it is going to affect your freelancing profile position. And the month of hard work is wasted. Yes, rating and reviews are other names of a nightmare. One bad review and your rating drop considerably. And I must say clients are very well aware of this powerful tool in their hands. So any freelancer easily exploited. Another issue that clients or people looking for a freelancer to get their work done would want to get their work done at a minimum price. They are like someone please do my work for free. I don’t know what they think of people working online. Believe me, they are not rich in fact most of the freelancers are always in dire need of the money. Fraud and deception are so prevalent there since you are at a very long distance so nothing can be much done. Your hard work of days and nights is out of your hand with only one wrong move. Freelancing is a saturated industry now and one has to upgrade their skills on regular basis and it’s not just anyone can do this. One must have the expertise of the field. Because you have great responsibilities of other people work on your shoulders.