Financial contamination

Entrepeneurship is not always a good thing. I should know, my family is littered with entrepeneurs. All self-employed, most of them doing quite well for themselves. ALWAYS looking for opportunities to make another buck.

The problem with this mindset is when it becomes all-pervasive. When everything you view in life, and every activity you take part in, you're looking through your entrepeneurial spectacles (often unbeknowingly).

What got me thinking about this was yesterday's post about the motivations of blogging. I would be lying if I said that I had never entertained dreams of BiPolar Daily somehow turning into a profit machine. Not mega-profits, just enough to keep me ticking down here in my electronic hermitage by the sea.

That sneaking dream was obviously a lot stronger 18 months ago than now. But even these days I catch my entrepernuerial mind at work. Like I'll see statistics that more and more people are getting diagnosed as BiPolar. Entrepenuerial mind -> my "market" is growing! Then I see research that Netsurfers spend a very high proportion of their time on medical and health sites. Again -> my "markets" growing!

Yeah, I can already hear some of you snickering. But show me a blogger who at one point or another didn't fantasize about having a huge audience and posting every day for a living. We can't help but think this way - capitalism ingrains our worldview from an early age.

But what do we lose in the process? What is sacrificed when every direction we turn in our blogs, subconsciously there other motives at work? Don't get me wrong - we don't blog solely with the dream of making money - its more like holding a little lotto ticket, knowing full well that we aint gonna win, but also knowing full well that we should not totally rule out the possibility.

What do we lose? I'd say for one - enjoyment. My Dad's a classic example. He retired nearly 10 years ago and is now in the situation where he could do with a little extra cash. Simultaneouly he is an exceedingly good photographer - one of the top landscapers in SA. And now, increasingly, he's starting to wonder how he can turn his photography into profit. He did photography his whole life as a passionate hobby, made his money elsewhere. But since this entrepenuerial motive has arisen I've noticed his passion waning. Instead of looking at landscapes and saying WOW, that's beautiful man, he's starting to look at things and saying: "will the public like it? will it be saleable?"

What a fkcn pity man. Because the joy he was getting previously was priceless. To throw that away for the sake of a little pocket-money is sacrilege. But he's not the only one. So often I see people that are really good at their hobby/interest/passion who start scheming at one time or another - hey, I want to do this for a living. And from thereon out is is just all downhill.

Etcetera, etcetera...