Is no longer fun to be a freelancer

As a web-developer and freelancer with over 10 years experience, I feel entitled to share my story with anyone willing to listen.

A freelancer or freelance worker is a term commonly used for a person who is self-employed and is not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term.

This may sound like a dream job to many of you, struggling to make a living. You’re stuck maybe in a dead end job with a crazy boss and you want a chance to unleash your creativity. You can offer to the world much more than the repetitive tasks you’re currently doing.

I know because I’ve been in the exact same position before I took the freelancer route. I didn’t quit my day job until I got my very first project to work on. It was hard work but I enjoy it and I made good money with it. It help me gain confidence and it didn’t take much until I found another client and then another. I also improved and learned new skills as I worked.

Over the years I found some long-term collaborations that I really enjoyed. I got the chance to work for a client for a few months and then I was back to finding something else. A few more meaningless jobs before I found another client that I worked with almost a year. Working one on one with a guy the appreciates and understands you is great. At my peak I made over $2.000 a month for couple of years. Enough money to get my life in order.

But nothing lasts forever. The problem is that change is the only constant in our life. Over the years clients became more demanding, competition got more extreme. Now every month new software is released. New and better software that slowly makes everything you know obsolete.

Thanks to spending days and nights learning, now I can make a website from scratch. I can optimize databases, fight hackers or balance the load across several servers. That's all great but in just a decade almost everything I’ve learned will no longer be useful to anybody. That’s how fast technology is evolving.

If you’re still young the prospect of constantly learning sounds doable, exciting and challenging. But when you’re closing to 40 and other responsibilities start showing up, you'll find yourself having less and less free time to learn new things.

Before considering a freelancer career. I think you should really comprehend the ever increasing competition and the constantly evolving technologies that automate everything. Even creating websites is automated now, adding to the competition.

A much better alternative is becoming a freelancer... for yourself. Create something. Make a video, write a book. Try to make a passive income for yourself and everything will be fine.

This is my first article on steemit and any feedback will be much appreciated.