Good morning Reader,

A few weeks ago, I was at the Taylor Swift concert in Munich. One of my friends Sinem was in the area so we met up for coffee! Despite being friends since 2020, we’ve only met in person twice — once at my wedding, and then this past July in Germany.

She’s such a successful creator, really the whole package. She has a thriving business: she works on projects she believes in, she gets to write as much as she likes, and she learns new skills all the time.

She leads a very full life outside of work, too. She was in Munich because she’d just finished up a multi-day yoga retreat. She goes on frequent holidays, she has time for her friends and family, and she pursues nonwork hobbies, too.

She’s happy with her life, and she deserves every success and ounce of joy because she built it all herself with her partner, Philip.

As we caught up over kaffee und kuchen, I reflected that until recently, I had what she had. I had workdays that were done by 12 or 1 pm. I wrote about what I wanted, whether that was AI image generators or cat myths. I went for runs when I felt like it, I spent time on extravagant baking projects, and I always had time to read my books.

Today, my time is owned by someone else. I work for a paycheck. I do tasks to further someone else’s business.

And I could not be happier with my decision. This is even though I took a significant pay cut at my first job. Yes, you read that correctly: when I originally went back to full-time employment in January 2024, my take-home salary was lower than what I was making as a freelancer. It was still worth it.

Since I “retired” from being a creator and went back to full-time work, I get asked a lot: why? From the outside, it looks like I threw away something amazing for just another 9–5. But from the inside, it was the right call.

Here’s why.

I was bored and burned out.

I should have suspected this might be the case when the other conventional WFH wisdom failed to apply to me: I never once felt the urge to just sit down and watch Netflix for hours on end. I would almost always prefer to do something productive or creative.

Why? Because to me, watching Netflix for hours is boring. I don’t have it in me to play video games from 1 pm to 6 pm. Most evenings, I was just waiting for my partner to come home or my friends to finish their jobs so I could do something with them. I was still living for the weekends since it was the only time the rest of the world could hang out with me.

Not only was I bored, but I was also, somehow, simultaneously burned out. I lost the drive to do SEO research for my articles and videos. I couldn’t muster up the energy to sell another product. I didn’t want to hustle out to find another client. I was coasting on what I had, exhausted and uninterested.

After over three years of self-employment, I was bored of only working 20 hours per week at most. And I was burned out of the hard parts of my job.

No great travel opportunities.

One of the biggest benefits of self-employment as a “digital nomad” is traveling. Pack your laptop and you can work anywhere. Take as much vacay as you want.

Except… my partner’s job is based in an office, and he doesn’t have unlimited vacation time. My cats are here at home. Most of my friends are here or have their own 9–5 jobs.

​I could travel but I’d be alone, away from my husband and my cats. If I traveled to see friends or family. I’d have to coordinate around their work schedules. I did it once or twice, but after a few times, it didn’t appeal.

No or few benefits.

As a Type A (or at least as a Type A-) personality, I like to plan for the future. I like putting money into my 401k. I like getting employer-covered time off. I like to have health care coverage. And you know what, I like getting the same amount of money on a regular schedule.

All of that, as a freelancer, was either out of my reach or took extra work to manage. As an employee, it’s just part of the perks of my job.

I hate sending invoices and doing taxes.

As a freelancer/entrepreneur, you do everything yourself. I was in charge of my own:

• marketing
• finance
• accounts receivable
• hiring
• career development
• creative
• accounting
• branding

Even office management fell on my plate. If I wanted fun work snacks provided for me, by golly, I had to go out and supply them myself. I was very envious of my husband, whose office manager kept him stocked with chocolate-covered almonds.

I hated sending invoices. I hated managing my taxes. I hated designing what my products should look like. I just wanted to write, make videos, and create useful products. Everything else was something for me to either grit my teeth and get through or have to pay someone else to do. Neither option appealed to me.

I wanted to be part of something bigger.

When I first soft-launched my job hunt in October 2023, one of the biggest motivators was that I was lonely. Building a business of one (plus a few contractors I hired) is a solitary enterprise. Slowly but surely, I started feeling a desire to be part of something bigger than my one-woman gig. I wanted to build something together with other people.

I ended up first taking a full-time job with one of my writing clients. Had the opportunity to work for Medium not dropped into my lap, I would have been very happy there. My boss was great, I enjoyed the work I did, and most importantly, I felt like I was on a team again.

Now, as part of the Medium team, I’m even happier. I get to be part not just of something, but one of the businesses and products I’ve loved for six years.

There’s no shame in quitting. I don’t know how many creators feel like me, deep down — maybe not that many, but maybe more than I realize — slowly losing the will to keep grinding away.

Many of the touted benefits of self-employment just don’t add up to a happy life, for me at least. I like to stay busy, work with other people, and have a predictable life. And I’ve come to learn that those things don’t tend to come with my style of entrepreneurship.

I like to remind folks reading this newsletter: if you’re feeling like the work is no fun, if you’re not having a good time, if you’re reduced to grinding out content for pennies, then ask yourself: what would it take to make you happy? How long until you get there? And is it worth it? If not, it’s worth reflecting on whether you want to continue, whether that's fulltime freelance or just your side hustle.

For me, it was worth it — for three years. Then it wasn’t. I was a little embarrassed to “quit” my freelance career because it felt like I had somehow failed at entrepreneurship, but I’m also much happier now than I was a year ago. Is that a failure, to shape my life the way I want it to be? I don’t think so, no matter what it looks like from the outside.

Happy writing,

Zulie