I feel I am writing for some sort of public accountability. But lately I have been doing a lot of introspection and honestly getting rather frustrated.

I think about all the things we want to do as a family and frankly the contraint comes down to money. Now this is a hard thing to say because there is so much baggage that comes into this conversation around money.

Where I grew up and with the religious background we have, money is seen as being the slippery slope to leaving the faith. “You can do great things with it” and then comes the inevitable “but”. And if we just look at the typical advice it is always to “provide for family”, “do your job well”, “save for retirement”, “put money away for kids college”, and on and on.

One of the greatest frustrations about all of this is the guilt that comes from wanting to do other things with my time that provide in a more significant way both literal monetary proivsion for my family and in a more significant way to me mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. The guilt lingers and is always a voice of accusation so then Im stuck in this cycle of guilt over wanting to do other things, settle to stick with status quo, and then pissed off that I am not where I want to be, and then guilt that I am not content with where I am, and on and on it goes.

I digress. Another thing that always comes up is this idea of “audience” or “niche” or “target market”. The problem with this for me is that I am just interested in so many different things. So if I was to choose teaching in software development, and choose a topic, like I am kind of doing with Local First developemnt, I get sick of it so fast. I also don’t know if it will be as profitable as I would like it to be and then I get petrified.

All this to say I want 2025 to be a year of experiments. There are things I am focusing on but also I am just curious if I can make things like Youtube and LinkedIn work for me. I want Youtube to be somewhere I do give aways or something interesting. I don’t really want to do teaching fulltime on Youtube as that seems like it can’t really grow unless it is things in the productivity realm. The only way I can see this working is if I figure out how to get productive myself.

I had some success doing this on LinkedIn for helping people trying to land their first job but I feel weird charging people who are already in a tough financial spot money. It just has me curious if there are things I can do like the guy who mows lawns for free but makes his living on youtube. What do I have to offer others. What pain can I solve for people that could lead to being able to spend our time as a family how we want, give freely how we want, and so on.

Just ramblings. I’m both excited for 2025 and a bit frustrated with where I am. I’m not frustrated with family and all the good things we have. We are very gratefule. Just wanting to be a bit more proactive building life rather than reacting to it.