The Other Side of Freedom

I want to reflect in this post on something I have been thinking about a lot lately, something I only really discovered through the experiences I have gone through during this decade of my professional life.

There are things that seem obvious, but some people choose to follow what is obvious, while others, like me, choose to experiment. Or maybe sometimes I simply do not stop to think about what is obvious in the first place. I automatically choose to go try things and figure them out later.

Maybe I simply did not have enough maturity to understand certain obvious things, and because of that, I ended up choosing difficult paths at times when I could have simply chosen the obvious one and followed it.

These past few days, while reflecting on my career and on what happened when I was preparing for marriage, I realized that I had gotten myself into a strange kind of chaos.

I finally understood a concept that our parents have always been looking for, but that maybe our generation tends to overlook because, to us, it can seem less important than taking risks.

That concept is:

Financial Stability.

As I mentioned before, I spent years in employment, living paycheck to paycheck. At the time, with the mindset I had, stability looked like standing still and not growing.

On top of that, I was heavily influenced by hustle culture and entrepreneurship because I was constantly consuming content about them. People would always describe that stable position as the "comfort zone."

And I bought into that logic.

Stability meant you were standing still. You were not growing. So, automatically, my decisions started moving in the direction of self development, getting out of my comfort zone, and eventually reaching better results without having to remain in a 9 to 5 job, because the potential seemed much bigger.

That is what I did.

I followed that logic for most of the past decade.

And on top of that, employment felt restrictive. You do not fully control your time. You can start feeling like you are becoming a routine person who does not do anything new, even when you want to, because you simply do not have the energy to do something different.

So everything starts adding up, and eventually independence, freelancing and entrepreneurship start looking like Jannah.

So I jumped into all of that, and now, a decade later, I guess I have learned a lot of things.

The first one is:

Stability does not mean that you are standing still.

And when I talk about stability here, I specifically mean financial stability.

Entrepreneurship and freelancing can be an incredibly exciting world, especially in the beginning.

You experience what it feels like when your effort can bring you double, triple, or sometimes even more than what you used to earn in an entire month of employment.

Sometimes, something you would have been paid for a whole month of work can be earned through just 3 days of work on a single project.

You taste that feeling of putting in a huge effort and receiving a huge paycheck without giving up your freedom and flexibility.

You start feeling like you are on top of the world.

But what you can really overlook is the mental health cost that comes with it.

Instead of having one boss, you suddenly have many clients who effectively become your bosses.

Instead of being able to properly disconnect during weekends and holidays, you can end up working every waking hour, plus all the other things that come with being an independent professional.

And everything can keep going well, until you discover that in this freelance world, there is no safe paycheck arriving every month.

You discover that you can have a month where you have a lot of work and make good money, only to have the next four or five months pass without a single client coming in.

And suddenly, you have to manage your finances very carefully, especially when you have commitments such as paying rent and simply being able to live.

You discover that some clients will try to take advantage of you and refuse to pay you, even after you have put in serious work on their project.

You discover that sometimes you can put your heart and soul into a project, only for the client to cancel it completely.

And then there are all the other risks that come with this lifestyle.

You keep trying to adapt.

You make mistakes. You learn. You learn more. You keep your eyes closed to certain realities because you are trying to make the lifestyle work.

And suddenly, seven years have passed and you realize you are still in the same place.

You did not really evolve. You are just doing the same thing over and over again every year.

And if you want to leave this lifestyle, you also have to deal with the commitment that comes with it.

For someone like me, that can eventually lead to burnout.

I have already talked about that in previous posts.

Even then, you keep trying to find ways to scale and automate things so you can earn more while freeing up more time to do other things.

Then, little by little, you remember that you are actually a human being.

At some point, you are going to want to build a home, have a family and get married.

And that is where you finally face the reality of it.

Financial stability is the king.

Marriage and building a family do not really work well with a chaotic lifestyle where you make money one month and then potentially make nothing for the next five months.

No matter how much you try to manage it, eventually you can find yourself facing problems and situations you never expected.

Entrepreneurship and freelancing require some kind of financial backbone.

Either you come from a wealthy family that gives you a certain level of security and allows you to take more risks.

Or you have some kind of capital coming from another, more automated source.

Or you are someone who is comfortable with taking bank loans and always knows that, if necessary, you can get credit and continue funding your growth.

Unfortunately, I did not have any of that.

And entrepreneurship becomes even harder for someone like me when there is no financial safety net behind it.

This can be perfectly fine when you are alone and marriage is not something you are thinking about.

But once you start thinking about getting married, this chaos of independence suddenly becomes a huge obstacle.

And that is when you really start to understand the value of that feeling of knowing that when the month ends, there will be a paycheck in your bank account without you having to chase clients and convince them to pay you.

You stop constantly thinking and stressing about what might happen next and what could go wrong.

You start feeling secure.

Of course, as Muslims, we believe that Allah is the ultimate Provider and that there is no one who can give you security except Allah.

But that does not contradict understanding that financial security is an important practical consideration when you want to get married.

And this is what I eventually came to understand after that experience of trying to get married.

Financial stability is genuinely important.

And marriage itself is also a chaotic project in its own way. It is a huge learning phase, just like entrepreneurship, and both require an unreal amount of mental capacity if you want to give them the attention they deserve.

So without financial stability, taking on two chaotic projects at the same time can become overwhelming.

You can reach a total mental breakdown.

Alhamdolilah, I never reached that point, because honestly, I am not sure how I would have found the strength to get back up again.

So what I really learned from all of this is that it is possible to look for financial stability through different paths.

At the very least, having some kind of monthly paycheck from something.

It can be employment, or it can be something else.

And that does not mean you are entering your comfort zone, as hustle culture taught us to believe.

You can be financially stable while still moving.

You can be stable and, at the same time, be on a moving wheel, continuing to grow and move forward in your life.

Right now, I have stopped all my ventures and made it a personal mission to find a way to achieve financial stability.

Only after that will I be in a better position to enter whatever project comes next, whether it is a personal project such as marriage, or a professional project such as a business or a startup.

And this is the conclusion I have reached for now.

Financial stability is seriously overlooked and underrated.

For some people, this may have always been obvious.

For me, I had to learn it, maybe the hard way.

But it is never too late.

We are still here, living this life, and we keep learning after every experience.

Alhamdolilah, and all thanks to Allah for all the blessings.