[Part 13] Two Jobs, a Career Change, or a Third Way?
worrying about this month's revenue.
Some days, the phone doesn't ring once.
Still, I show up early every morning
and stay until closing time.
Some days, I feel less like a person
and more like a mannequin
keeping the office warm.
The sun feels warm today.
Cherry blossoms and forsythia will be in full bloom soon.
Spring always comes, right on schedule.
always makes spring feel far away.
A thought crosses my mind.
"I heard someone is making $5,000 a month doing deliveries…"
Online, I keep seeing stories of people
who made it big through YouTube or blogging.
It's hard not to be tempted.
So I started.
In the quiet hours, I made videos. I wrote posts.
That was a year ago.
I thought a year would be enough to see something.
Some people might say, "You'd have made more working a convenience store shift."
Twenty years ago, when I closed my first deal —
that raw, nervous feeling in my chest —
I felt it again in this tiny number.
I know that to get to the next number,
you have to pass through the moment
when zero becomes one.
I've been disappointed plenty.
But strangely, the disappointment has become familiar.
At some point, that became my default response.
And then I ask myself again.
Honestly, this process is pretty lonely.
I motivate myself, push forward, hit a wall,
carry the weight of the world for a while,
and then pull myself back up again.
Other days, like a motivational speaker.
And somehow, through all of that,
I've written 13 posts in this AI series.
This blog is for the reader.
But it's also a place where I sort out my own thoughts.
I'm hoping I'll find at least a small piece of hope
for myself too.
These days, the two questions I hear most often are:
"Should I just quit and start something new?"
With the added pressure of the AI era,
these questions come up more often and more urgently.
They make it look like there are only two roads in the world.
A second job is the most practical choice.
Money comes in immediately.
Delivery, driving, online sales — there are plenty of options.
But the essence of a second job is simple.
But in the age of AI,
time is a depreciating asset.
Eight hours at work, then three or four more at home —
you can survive today that way.
But can you keep that up for years?
My kids have eight more years before they're on their own.
riding a scooter,
sprinting up stairs with a delivery bag.
But it doesn't change the structure of your life.
So some people say:
There's a former colleague I think about.
He was a head of international sales for many years.
Six months after leaving his company,
still unemployed, I called him.
The weight in his voice stayed with me.
I hesitated to call again for three or four months.
Then he called me first.
"What else is there to do after leaving a company?
I'm just going to open a fried chicken place."
After he opened, I asked how it was going.
after paying for part-time help,
what I actually take home isn't much."
He said it was hard.
But compared to the voice I heard six months earlier —
he sounded so much better.
get redirected somewhere completely different —
I made a decision.
I would find a way to use my own assets
without letting them evaporate.
Failure at our age is a household crisis.
Better to prepare before you're pushed
into a choice you didn't make.
So I've been thinking about a different path.
Not fully leaving. Not fully committing.
the third way isn't a journey to a brave new world.
It's a tactical expansion —
holding your base camp
while quietly extending your territory.
Keep the current cash flow intact.
Use the quiet hours to run small, careful experiments.
I ran YouTube and a blog for a year.
That number up there is the sum total of what I earned.
How to use AI.
The rhythm of writing.
The ability to organize my own thinking.
And the small comfort
of knowing someone out there is reading this.
It's not money yet.
But it's accumulating.
You could get a second job.
You could go full-time on something new.
But what matters more is the standard you use to decide.
These days, I ask myself three questions.
next month's bills don't wait.
Whatever I try — second job or new venture —
it has to work around what I'm already earning.
Nobody abandons base camp
on the way to the summit.
a three-year runway is too long.
It needs to be something I can try —
even in a small way —
within six months.
Twenty years of expertise.
The resilience built through decades of experience.
The work ethic that people in their 40s and 50s carry.
A body that still works.
And family — the anchor and the reason.
Not learning something entirely new from scratch.
Starting from what's already inside me.
That's the most realistic starting point for our generation.
the choice isn't ready yet.
It belongs to those who keep moving.
The person who acts small and keeps going
will find the next opportunity
before the person still waiting for the perfect answer.
I still don't have the perfect answer.
But I keep writing.
The income is still that number up there.
But something is building.
Spring came, right on schedule.
It's okay if the flowers aren't blooming yet.
All I need to do
is make sure I'm standing in the right place
when spring finally arrives for me.
Today, I choose to believe that.
