I’ve been gainfully employed every single minute of my life since I was 15 years old. For the record, that was 25 years ago. I started out bagging groceries, and then moved to making pizza, and then to another grocery store, and finally to a historical magazine.

Now, I’m unemployed. I was pretty fine with it when it happened. Well, not fine. I thought I was prepared for it. I thought I knew what was coming. I would apply for new gigs, and I’d put serious effort into my two YouTube channels and my two blogs.

Turns out that a big factor in my motivation to actually do things relied on me having a paying job to keep me busy. Now that there is less structure in my life, I’m finding that I’m less likely to do the things that aren’t “have tos”. I don’t have to make a video, so I don’t. I don’t have to write a blog post, so I don’t.

When I had a job, it was actually way easier to do these extra things. The structure provided by the 9-5 (even if I didn’t actually work 9-5), kept me motivated in almost every other area of my life, and now that’s gone.

It’s not as if my plans for doing the things I want to do are gone. I talked about some of the plans on my latest Patron Podcast, and I meant every word. I still plan on making loads of videos and working on my history channel and writing a lot of blog posts. But I apparently also like sleeping until noon and spending way, way, way too much time on YouTube.

Obviously, I need to change my mindset. I have some job opportunities coming up, but until then, I really should try to treat my YT stuff as a real job. Put some hours in and see if for once I can provide my own structure and time management. I did it in college, I’m sure I can do it again. Even if college was 16 years ago. Fuck, I’m old.

Now, see that? I wrote a blog post. Thanks for reading.