Many months ago, as I navigated the next phase of my professional life, I picked up One Person / Multiple Careers by Marci Alboher. I meant to read it on a business trip to California, where I was meeting with my favorite writing clients. Too wrapped up with projects, didn’t happen. I meant to read it on another business trip to California, where I was presenting a new product at a trade show for my “day job.” Too wrapped up with show prep, didn’t happen. Meant to read it on my first real vacation in five years, and Lori reminded me that I was actually on a vacation.
This week, I finally got to sit down and absorb Marci’s book, which really distills the trend in our world right now: we no longer expect a single job or a single employer to provide every piece of the fulfillment we seek in our lives. We often speak of work/life balance. However, there’s still — for some of us — the need to have a work/work balance, or the desire to stretch every one of our creative muscles and still get paid for it.
As I see it, hobbypreneurs are a distinct subset of the “slash” professionals that Marci writes about. The profile theater director/computer programmer comes to mind, as do many passages about lawyers who act, sing, and dance. The most important thing to take away from this book is the kinship with folks like the author herself, a lawyer/journalist, who have spent so much of their time justifying their actions to friends and family. There are so many of us who seek creative fulfillment alongside financial reward, understanding that it’s not always fair or accurate to expect a single job to hold all of that promise.