[norbert]

Originally Posted by loveliketheflowers

i have been having trouble finding what I want to do with my life (work, career, making money, my "purpose").

Guess you're not alone with that I'd like to share some of my thoughts with you as I'm 25 but started to work at an early age and I've been in the web development industry for the last 8 years as a freelancer and business owner.

and there's so much i'm so unaware of such as the CSS codes (so many....), how to operate abobe dreamweaver (edit website)...i'm just lost. I took an online class for photoshop but I still have so many more classes to go, to gain the information I need to be an efficient web designer.

If you don't mind, I'd like to give you some tips on that. Professional designers work with Photoshop (some prefer "Corel"; I have no idea why); they put together the whole website template and then "slice" it (this is a manual process, not a single function) to create the final html + css documents. If it's a dynamic website, PHP, Ruby or .Net developers create the dynamic pages and apply the design using the html + css files provided by the designer, so they not need to work with Photoshop.

Why I'm telling this is that it is better to consciously make up your mind if you want to be an all-in-one designer/developer/maintainer or a more specific one. You actually can make a decision how much you wish to get into the technical details. Somebody who has a very good sense of graphic design (layout, colors, etc) can make a quite good income of creating templates only in Photoshop. The slicing in this case is made by other people (google xhtml slicing) and the development by web developers.

What I'd like to point out is two things:
- you can benefit from your energy better if you mainly focus on one of these areas. I say it definitely pays more to be a professional designer OR a professional developer etc than an all-in-one person.
- applications like Dreamweaver have been improved a lot over the years, still, professional sites are all hand-coded HTML + CSS.

So from summer til now, I have been trying to develop this business site, and found a person on craigslist to help me with some of the coding. but he scammed me, i found out he was not in california but in canada and threatened to call the police if i did not pay him. well i western union'ed the money and received nothing back from him. i got scammed. so now i'm back at square one.

One thing I'd like to point out here is that it's neither a good thing to pay everything in advance nor to pay nothing in advance. I find that for me, 3x15%+55% works the best, so the developer in this case has no food and rent problems and he is motivated to finish the project

I read on steve pavlina's site to NOT GET A JOB, and pursue something else that brings value to people. I have thinking and thinking, praying, reflecting, reading books on what I am suppose to do with my life to earn some money. I just want to be SOMEBODY, and make a difference in this world (a tiny one if possible).

I totally agree with you because that's where fulfillment comes from (while a job typically results in cash but no fulfillment).

One thing I've been thinking about a lot is this idea of providing value to people.

I believe you do not need to provide value in order to get money. However, if you want fulfillment, you better provide value and that is much harder than not providing any. I'm definitely for creating value. Steve wrote a post about this; search for moochers and contributors or something like that.

I think the web design biz would be a good fit for me but I don't think I have the skills or passion for it. I don't have any passions for anything really. I don't know what to do.

You either didn't found it yet or you didn't consciously choose that this is what I'm going to love ("love" is a verb!).

Its so hard to get a job too. I look on craigslist, its all scams or they are not interested. I go to a petco or target and they say fill out application and we will call ya. It's just so hard and discouraging. I would go back and take some course to complete my G.E. requirement but what is the point of going if I keep on messing up every single time.

Yeah. Jobs are indeed discouraging. If you don't find a compelling job, you may need to create one for yourself. That's not so hard to do but you need skills. The benefits for creating a job is that you have no (direct) boss, you set your own time schedule and may decide which projects to work on. However, I think it is MUCH HARDER to be a self-employed person. Look up cashflow quadrant on the net for the why but here are some examples: by default, you don't have a constant stream of work, a contants stream of income and you are responsible for everything. Doesn't sound too good, does it? But it's better than a day job for some stupid people like me Actually, for me, it was a big FAIL and it's not a destination anymore, only a temporary solution until I finish some products for myself.

I just do not know where to go next, or what to do. I want to work, but can't get work. I want to have my own biz, but don't know what to pursue. I just want to be somebody like all of you who are pursuing their passions.

Many many people are looking for their passion and some are lucky to have found it. You can get more lucky by experimenting with different things (you will know by experience what you like and what you don't).

I don't want to be broke either. My bf and I fight constantly because we never have any money to buy something when we are out and hungry or go to a movie. We can't do anything, but hang out at home. sigh.

I'm pretty much saying the same after doing this for several years (I'm burned out). The reason I'm not a "business owner" is because I do all the work. If you are too competent, you will end up doing the job yourself instead of hiring people and that becomes a trap in the long run. (I don't really want to manage people but I don't want to do the job myself anymore either).

Any help? Suggestions? I just want to be something, if not great, just somebody so I can be content and comfortable. My passions are art, graphic design (photoshop), poetry, animals (dogs [i had an idea for a dog grooming business ]]), screen play writing (i would like to get better and perfect the craft more), personal development, philosophy, and spirtituality. If you can, please help me out.

You may do them all. It's the 21st century, we're all going to do multiple things only for living, and pursue our dreams besides if we're not lucky enough to live off of that.

Start with web design but do the other things too. It's usually the combination of skills that pays very well, not a specific skill in itself. (I know this sounds contradictory to what I said above but it is not.)

Okay, so the specific advice: instead of learning for learning's sake, mail 50 web design businesses around you now and send them something you have done. Tell them that is what you can do and you're interested in occassional remote work. What you send does not have to be perfect. You will only get responses for your current skill level anyways. The reason I'm telling you to do this is to learn in practice (better than any school) and to earn some income instantly. You will get better paying jobs as you become more professional over the months/years. Finally, be prepared for burning out after some years (4-5?), find out how you can make money preferably from products that you can sell in an unlimited amount over and over again (you can use your skills to create them) . Be prepared that it is hard to get a consistent stream of work but go for it anyways. Several years later, become financially free (in the sense that you don't work for money anymore because your monthly passive income covers your monthly costs), do what you truly love or spend some years figuring it out.

Well, thanks for reading, hope it makes sense (hopefully spared you some years ) and good luck to you loveliketheflowers! (sorry for the long post I don't know how it happened)