It’s Not Just a Dream — It’s Work
For everyone who's tired of pretending their dream isn’t a job
This post is an unfiltered exploration of frugal, hard-tempered thoughts and emotions. Letting them all wander in full bloom.
People don’t take me seriously — because I don’t have a boss.
Because I work for myself and don’t have an employer, people assume I don’t work. As if my time isn’t real work-time. Specially now that I am trying to build a business.
But anyway, I am used to it. When I was a makeup artist people used to question my career.
“Why don’t you just get a job?”
Me: Ouch. I do have a job. It’s just… different.
I’ve never had a normal 9-to-5, Monday-to-Friday job. I’ve always freelanced. Even the side gigs I took were very specific. Never had a classic work contract or schedule.
But I’ve always worked hard chasing something I care about. I know I shouldn’t give a fuck about how people perceive it. But sometimes, it gets to me.
The Invisible Workload
When I said I was not going to keep seeking for a corporate job, instead I was going to start my own business. I felt laughed at.
“What will you do?” They joke. “stare at the wall all day?”
Funny, I laugh too. Until I don’t.
Building a business is not like having a magic wand. You pour yourself into it, but when there are no visible results, people assume you’ve done nothing.
You put your soul and only get crickets: it's, oh, so quiet. Shhhh, shhhh.
There is a lot of work and energy that is put into it. A lot of mental and emotional labor that goes unseen.
And because I handle my own time and schedule, some assume I’m available around the clock. Well, well, no, that's just nonsense.
Flexible, Until I Break
All this to say: I’ve learned that I need to set rules. Boundaries. Fixes.
This rant started because I failed to protect my own time. I told myself, I’m my own boss, I can adjust, but… when is it too much?
I thought I was good at self-regulating. Then life goes, Oh, so you think you got it? And bang! It throws situations at me, over and over, to test if I’ve really mastered it. And that’s the beauty of life —is working for you, not against you.
I’m proud that I’m learning to validate my own time.
Maybe all this is just personal brain poo. Fed by my ego? Or fear dressed up as logic? This constant need to justify, to prove, to seek validation.
No boss means I’ve kept quiet and flexible, because I could.
But to what extent?
I Was the One Dismissing Me
Bottom line: I wasn’t taking myself seriously.
Because I didn’t have a “normal” job (no outside boss, no obligations set by others), I invalidated my own work and time.
And maybe because I’m not building something in a classic, obvious way—no outside investors, no office, no employees. Just an indie tech builder with a few missed shots under my sleeve. It’s invisible. No physical thing people can point at. And so, it’s easy to dismiss.
I needed to validate and honor my path and my self-worth. To take myself seriously. To own my own off-the-road way of doing things.
At the end, this rant was all about my brain worms polluting my self-worth and a dose of paranoia striking in.
The big lesson: the hardest work is inwards.
And once you see that, you start valuing yourself differently. Not for what’s visible, but for the guts it takes to keep dreaming anyway.