You may have noticed I’ve been absent lately and the few of you who stop by now and again have my sincere apologies. I won’t bore you with my life except to say that a promotion to a new role at work has left me with far less time than I’d like to devote to ToxicKindness.

In addition to my day job, I’ve undertaken a new venture. Basically, I’ve realized that I don’t really enjoy what I do for a living. I’m good at it. I have a talent for working with people and I sincerely enjoy helping people. But I long ago stopped enjoying the field of work I’m in.

Join the club, right? Who doesn’t get fed up with their jobs. I agree. Only, in my own case, I’d like to at least take a shot at doing something about it and maybe help a few people out of their own career misery in the process. And, no, I don’t mean by finding yet another job doing more of the same elsewhere.

When you bottom line it, the companies we work for pay us less than we are worth. That’s fine. They deserve a profit, after all. They assume the risk of owning and running a company. They assume the expense of leasing office space. I’m ok with them getting their bonus. I’m not ok with the wholly imbalanced level of things in my particular case, though. There’s an imbalance in the world that keeps growing. The Haves keep getting more and the Have Nots keep finding themselves with less. Solution? Become a Have who sincerely wants to benefit the Have Nots.

I was researching consulting companies in the US and learned that a technology or financial consulting company paying an employee $50/hour is likely billing them out to clients for between $250-350/hour. Now, that employee probably doesn’t mind much if they don’t think about it. $50/hour is great money! But when you do the math and realize that she is worth 5 to 7 times what that company is willing to pay her, it deflates that bubble of satisfaction a bit, doesn’t it? And, no, that’s not my salary.

I decided my time is more valuable if applied to working for ME than it is when spent working for somebody else. I’ve also decided there are plenty ways to earn money out there and the internet is a resource that has made these options more attainable to your average person than ever before.

I further decided that it would be fun to try out different methods of earning money (on and offline) and learning from mistakes and experience (I love a good mistake now and again because that’s when you really learn things). Finally, I found myself grinning at the thought of how great it would be if my experiences could translate into learning opportunities for others. Wouldn’t it be incredible if something I tried, wrote about and explained in detail to others gave somebody I’d never met the opportunity to change their lives for the better?

If I earn a few extra dollars from my efforts, it’ll have been a fun experience. If I wind up earning a living from my efforts, it will have been a life changing series of events. If I help others accomplish the same along the way, I’ll feel my life has had a purpose beyond fixing somebody’s network a thousand miles away (yes I know the guy with the network problem is glad to have me around but that’s just not the legacy I want to leave behind).

I love helping people out. It’s just the best feeling in the world when you know you’ve changed somebody’s day for the better and that they are now likely paying the same forward. I enjoy it when I save an office, a business unit or even just a single person from some electronic hell they’ve found themselves in. But what if I could help a financially struggling family put a few extra meals on their table or to buy some extra toys for their kids? What if I could help a retiree who didn’t have enough saved in retirement to find a way to bring in an extra $20, $80, $500 or $5000 a month? What if somebody applies what I learn, strikes it rich and then feels he can finally afford to really make a difference with his favorite charity?

Money does not buy happiness. But to deny it is a vital component of modern living is to live in a dream world. When society has reached the point in which even WATER costs money, you know that the coin of the realm has been irrevocably interwoven into our lives.

So that’s what I’ve been up to lately, folks - building a new blog titled Self Employed or Bust with the objective in mind of finding my own financial independence and helping others do the same along the way. No, I’m not selling anything there. Every bit of advice will be offered free of charge and my earnings will only come from ad revenue and reviews (of things like books on the subject of finance). Maybe it’ll succeed, maybe it’ll flop. Either way, it will have been a worthwhile effort with some valuable lessons gained along the way and the potential to have helped others.

And if I make it… if my dreams come true and the hard work pays off, I hope to leave a trail of equally rewarded people along the way. All of them better off because I got a little too fed up with my job. Now that’s what I call a legacy.

But don’t worry, this isn’t goodbye. If anything it’s, “hi, I haven’t forgotten about ToxicKindness or the friends I’ve made here and I’ll be back more often as the ball gets rolling on this other thing.” So check back soon for more of my opinionated take on what a little love for others can do for the world. I’ll have more of it to spread around soon.