The money may or may not follow.

But, at least, you’ll be doing something you love.

Here’s a thing I wonder:

Why, in my entire life, have I always worked harder for free than for money?

Part of it, of course, is that I am an artist and very few people ever get paid for art.  So, okay, if you really love what you are doing, it makes sense that you would expend a lot of effort regardless of money.

But what about when I’m doing things I don’t love so much.  Sometimes, I’ve done computer kinds of work—which is what I used to do for money (with mixed feelings of satisfaction and annoyance)—and now do, occasionally, on a volunteer basis.  I’ve noticed that the stuff for which I’m volunteering—I just keep at it until I figure it out and finish it—where the stuff for which I was getting paid?  I would go home at the end of the day.  I would take a lunch hour.  I would take a vacation.

So what is it that makes me work harder when I’m not getting paid? And resent it less?

My mother says I was frightened by a paycheck when I was young.

Which makes me laugh, but is…you know…silly.

I think it’s something complicated about responsibility and expectations and autonomy.

If you’re not paying me, I don’t really have to do it—so, maybe, I just have an underlying sense that I’m doing it because I want to and that makes it more fun?

If you’re not paying me, I’ll do my best, but I can’t be blamed if it doesn’t work out and that makes it less onerous?

If you’re not paying me, I can do it my way, because, really, what are you going to do about it and that gives me more control?   (Except I’ve always tried to make the client happy even when the client has no $—so that’s probably not it—or not much of it, anyway.)

I don’t know.  But I certainly wonder about it.