In the early morning of the north, Shanghai and Guangzhou, any rush subway to the downtown area is filled with office workers who can't wake up.
The chosen son with a seat can recite a few words "decently", and the standing social animal can only use every muscle on his body to stand in the narrow carriage, looking for a corner of the circle of friends.
Morning rush hour at Xi'erqi Subway Station / Xiao Yi
At the same time, in countless sun-drenched rental houses, a group of young people were still dreaming.
They don't have to clock in, travel at different peaks, and they have a very different rhythm of life than nine to five. This group of young people who have bid farewell to work are supporting themselves in the most unstable way in the urban jungle of survival of the fittest.
When he's in bad shape, freelance photographer L stays in a rental room and smokes, "don't worry about disturbing others." ”
What problems will an ordinary person who chooses not to go to work encounter on the road to find freedom?
With these questions, Lin An interviewed dozens of post-90s people who were uneasy about the status quo, and here are a few stories she collected.
One
To be honest, I really don't like going to work
"I'm not a good employee."
Zi Qi, 29 years old, is the famous "first batch of post-90s". In her modest employment career, no job lasted a year.
Sometimes the company lays off employees and cuts down the entire department; sometimes it's the structural adjustment, she is reluctant to change jobs, simply resigns; and sometimes, she simply does not like boring work.
It is not worth the trivial work at hand, and it is not enough to reach the "tall" large company. In this way, Ziqi held the title of "operation" and frequently jumped between different grids. Until the age of 28, a sense of crisis struck.
"I'm 28 years old and I don't have anything."
In Luohu, Shenzhen, where Ziqi is located, there is never a shortage of young people with dreams
At the beginning, Zi Qi, who had no background, came to Beijing with a two-book graduation certificate, relying on a restless heart. Today, it is impossible for her to continue to be a loveless screw in the company.
After four years of work, Ziqi chose to resign naked. Undertake the agency operation service of the catering public account, and the income is not as high as when I went to work, but I am free.
"I don't earn a monthly salary, I earn an hourly wage."
And, at last, she didn't have to waste time on her commute. "If I had to stay old, I would have to squeeze the subway to commute to work like this, I really can't stand it."
In the morning rush hour, the flow of people pouring out from the Xi'erqi subway station
"Don't want to squeeze the subway", "Don't want to do repetitive work", "Don't want to be a screw"...
Nico has amassed many similar complaints about work, but hidden beneath the iceberg, the deeper reason is "no sense of accomplishment."
Compared with Ziqi, who has mediocre ability, nico's monthly salary was already 20,000 when he resigned from the company.
Nico shoots short videos of Teaching English at home, from scripting, filming, and editing, all by one
She worked in an English training institution for just three years, from a junior trainer to a research and development manager, and her monthly salary rose from 5,000 to 20,000 yuan. During this period, he also mentioned his departure to his boss three times.
"For the first time, I complained about the company's chaotic management, small space for exertion, and low sense of achievement, and the leader promised to solve them and gave me two weeks off."
Nico went out for a lap and came back to work.
"The second time, I repeated the problem, the boss promised to solve it, and gave me another two weeks off."
At the end of his sabbatical, Nico was promoted to R&D manager.
It was the hardest year of her work, to the point of forgetting to eat and sleep. She led the team to develop a new teaching system, which can be regarded as "meritorious consummation".
However, throughout the process, Nico's design ideals often diverged from the company, "After all, it is something for children to see, and it is not confusing." ”
Finished nico homemade instructional videos
Patience was smoothed out a little, and Nico once again moved the idea of resigning. Friends advised her, "Bear with me for the sake of money." ”
"But you don't make much money going to work in your last life," Nico retorted.
This time, the boss didn't hold back.
When she was tired, Nico would go to the balcony to play the piano for a while, afraid of disturbing the neighbors, she would play with special headphones
Although the resignation was cool for a while, Nico also thought about it for a long time before making a formal decision.
She made a "To be or not to be" list of things she wanted to do, the benefits, the risks, and so on. Unexpectedly, she found a vast world with great potential.
"I've worked for four companies, none of which have provided good training, none of whom have met any workplace mentors, all of whom are constantly being demanded and squeezed by companies on their own. Then when you can't squeeze out the oil, the company will think you're out and tell you to look at the outside world more. ”
However, the traffic of self-media has not increased, Nico often loses sleep, and there is a "Sleep Revolution" at the head of the bed.
"In my opinion, 996 does not exist, and young people must learn and improve through time outside of work."
Two
What an experience it is to start a business
The place is at the best time of career development - the leader has just finished raising his salary and has chosen to resign.
The desire to "open a dessert shop" fermented in her mind and became more and more intense.
At the beginning, it was not too difficult, but it took three days to ask my mother to agree, borrowed 100,000 yuan from my family, and embarked on the road of entrepreneurship.
At that time, most of the friends around me were preparing for the civil service examination and living a life of one-sightedness. However, the life of the earth has opened a new chapter.
"I was very intoxicated by this pleasure of pursuing my dreams and the praise of others."
Geo-local cartoons with partner/geo-comics
In the early days of entrepreneurship, the ground showed extraordinary willpower - training, research, site selection, store opening, almost all in one go.
I had a fever and was able to get up the next day and go to work.
She and her partner painted the walls of the studio white and scrapped a sweatshirt. "I never threw that dress away, and I left it until now, and when I see the white dots on the clothes, I think of the days when I painted the walls."
It took less than a month with the partners to renovate the studio
Describing myself at that time, I was ignorant and fearless, and I felt that my dreams were bigger than the sky. Seven days a week, nine to ten, you can give up everything for work.
But this state of excitement did not last long, and unexpected problems followed.
"I didn't even know how to make a budget statement."
Until a customer taught her to calculate the land, she found that in addition to rent, raw materials, water bills, labor, losses, etc. must be counted into the "expenditure", and the monthly expenditure is about 15,000 yuan.
"No wonder, according to the previous algorithm, we should have made a lot of money, but we haven't."
Locally made cakes. At the beginning, she believed that it was necessary to have a backbone to open a store, and she could not pursue internet celebrity products / places
When one wrong decision after another makes the business always tepid, the ground begins to slacken off.
If you are in a bad mood, you will not go to WeChat and not open a store, or play games at home for a day. Not working means no income, emotions become worse, and a vicious cycle is ever since.
In this way, the land with no colleagues and no workplace relations began to lie out day and night, completely isolated from society.
The first card made for the studio: You are 100% away from happiness, only one dessert / place
When interest becomes work, it is no longer an interest, and a new interest is developed on the ground - werewolf killing.
For a while, she slept until she woke up naturally every day, made a few cakes in the afternoon, and went out drinking and playing werewolf killing in the evening.
Life seemed free, but she cried more than ever—just waving goodbye to her friends, and the tears fell, even after a hilarious chicken-eating game.
She suspected she had bipolar disorder, but didn't have the money to see a psychiatrist. Friends who noticed something strange came to the studio to accompany her, afraid that she would do something stupid alone.
The last straw that crushed the ground came from a new friend: "Is this the meaning of your life?" Don't you think this is a waste? ”
The "waste man" was like a loud slap that completely woke her up.
Photo of the ground with the homemade cake/ the ground
In the months before the decision to close the store, the ground had been struggling.
"Is it really all you have to close?" I'm not reconciled. ”
After failing to start a business, she was in debt and began to become afraid of doing things.
"Before, in the company, I only needed to do a screw and be taken away by the company. But opening your own store is different, you can see how far the store can go. ”
Now, the land can not say, in the longer coordinates of life, this entrepreneurial experience is good or bad. Although I lacked two years of workplace experience, I also gained a lot - through a bloody all-round exercise, I saw my shortcomings clearly.
"Now I'm more suited to working in the workplace."
Three
Self-discipline sets me free
In Ge Yakun's view, freelancing is the least free profession in the world.
After graduation, he entered a state of "constant tossing and turning, repeated trial and error". He changed jobs every six months and finally concluded, "I'm not suitable for a job that requires communication and collaboration with people." ”
Coupled with his love of writing since childhood, he had the idea of making a living from it.
In the first month of his resignation, Ge Yakun shut himself in his home and wrote nearly ten novels. The shortest 10,000 words, the longest nearly 90,000 words, all voted for Douban to read.
Soon, he became a contracted writer for Douban Reading and had his first relatively stable income.
Some of The novels published by Ge Yakun in Douban
Inspired, Ge Yakun created a "perfect plan" for the freedom path in front of him:
While writing novels to support ideals; while writing outsourced manuscripts to make a living; while preparing for graduate school – if the novel is not popular in a few years, is this not a graduate school? You can change to a better job.
Facts have proved that too many retreats are equal to no retreats.
In the summer of 2017, Ge Yakun was alone in the small house of Songzhuang in Tongzhou, writing, studying for graduate school, and paying off the mortgage. The surroundings are desolate and without WiFi, and life is poor and miserable.
All kinds of desires were tearing, but what made him most anxious was that the numbers on the passbook were bottoming out day by day.
Ge Yakun bought a house in Tongzhou in 16 years, with very little furniture in the house and a large wasteland outside the window
One day, he saw a new media writing group recruiting writers, five or six thousand words of manuscripts, and a thousand fees. Ge Yakun quickly added the other party.
After entering the group, he found that there were more than 20 people who signed up. What was even more unexpected was that through layers of screening and repeated revisions, this manuscript later took more than a month.
"Because I was anxious in my heart and didn't want the previous efforts to be in vain, I kept revising it once, twice, three times..."
People kept withdrawing, but Ge Yakun gritted his teeth and persevered, and the revisions he got changed from "from beginning to end" to "local wording and logical problems".
Ge Yakun's writing notes
One manuscript was completed, the second one came, and Party A was still strict. In the end, the middleman could not resist and simply let Ge Yakun directly connect with "Party A".
He found out that the fee for a manuscript turned out to be 3,000 yuan.
Later, Ge Yakun saw his article on a knowledge payment APP, signed by the so-called "Party A". He understood, but it was just a middleman who made the difference.
Ge Yakun has a kitten and accompanies himself every day
This time, Ge Yakun sent an email directly to the person in charge of the APP and quickly received a reply. After communicating the causes and consequences, the other party agreed to cooperate with him at a price of one word and one yuan.
Wrongly, Ge Yakun has a long-term, stable income.
However, the examination was a fiasco that was expected, "to be honest, there was a sense of relief." ”
Without giving himself a chance to breathe, Ge Yakun threw himself into the writing of novels and manuscripts.
In just over a month, he has completed 7 manuscripts, which is 3 times more efficient than the average writer. At the moment of finishing the manuscript, he was often in a state of numbness, and he did not even have the strength to speak.
"Every day, we are fighting the devil of desire, choice, inspiration, quality control, etc."
Ge Yakun's 2018 year-end summary wrote.
Ge Yakun likes to light candles while writing, which can make him quiet
Later, Ge Yakun, who was disgusted with mechanical writing, began to readjust his rhythm: six days a week, from eight o'clock in the morning to eight o'clock in the evening, sometimes dragging until the early morning.
Today, the seven seven eighty-eight writing fees add up, and he has gone from being incalculable at the beginning to reaching tens of thousands of monthly incomes.
"I now work three hours a day and earn ten thousand a month, but I don't allow myself to write only three hours."
Anxiety is even more so. He often loses sleep, worried about party A's sudden termination of the contract, worried that the manuscript has not been reviewed, worried that he will not be able to balance the relationship between ideals and business...
Later, this anxiety melted into his marrow and became a part of life.
"At least every day, you can do what you love, don't have to deal with complicated relationships, and you can also write in exchange for food."
After interviewing more than 50 freelancers, Lin An found that compared with those who have worked hard for many years, the post-90s are much more decisive in resigning.
The failure rate is also much higher.
She suggests that before impulsively speaking nakedly, it is better to assess the cost of trial and error:
1. You can live for more than 1 year without going to work
2. Proven monetization skills
3. Strictly manage the self-control ability of time
4. Clear planning and goals for the coming year
If you can't meet these conditions for the time being, it's better to go to work honestly first. When the time comes, it is not too late to pursue freedom.
After all, "when a person swings in the abstract, he can no longer work concretely." ”