So, here I am at the young age of 53, true in the minds of many this is not a young age. On the other hand, I imagine if you go ahead and ask other 53-year-olds how young they feel and I can imagine a lot would be the same as me, age is in your head.
I am at a point where I am forced to either:
A) Leave my wife for possibly 5 months and return to work in the office in a town that borders the rock of Gibraltar, yes my office-based job is in Gibraltar
B) Take a massive plunge and leave my job and go freelance, issue with that is my skillset is not that great at the moment.
The below picture is of the area where I live now:
The below picture is of the town where I could be going.
Yes, the above picture is more or less a daily occurrence there. It is the town where over 80% of Europe's hashish lands from Morocco and as a bonus the town next door to La Linea is a major port where ships from South America dock and I think we all know which white powder comes from South America!
So, as I am a nature lover and not a town dweller you can see my conundrum, as a song by 'The Clash' goes Should I Stay Or Should I Go,
I for sure should stay where I am!
.So, back to the subject of 'Mind Over Matter.
While I did mention that my skill set is not that great, I possess years of experience within the Customer Service field and can hand 3 Live Chat Sessions on the go whilst also handling a telephone call. I also have a typing speed of some 50 words per minute.
The other skill set I have, while not being that strong at the moment is I know HTML5, CSS3, WordPress, Local SEO and or so I think have the ability to learn JavaScript to which I have been studying.
So, yeah, I am kind of a geeky guy who loves looking at code and enjoys writing it and helping others.
The issue is I hear everywhere, 'Oh you can't do that!' 'What will you do, you just can't leave your job!' 'You're too old to learn to code!'
This is all negativity which of course does not help with your own mind over matter.
I have 45 working days before I would be forced back to the office, am only allowed to work a set amount of days per year to work from home.
45 working days from today puts me at the date of October 18, 2021, though thankfully I also have some holiday saved of some 20 odd days so that buys me another four weeks, roughly.
In this time frame, I have to find freelancing work with the skill-sets I have.
I have decided to create a blog of my efforts jpsaggs. It is in the very early stages and it is only a landing page at the moment.
Here I am going to ask you all a favour if you would be so kind to advise me if my idea for the blog is a good idea by simply replying to this post?
Bearing in mind my age I have decided to aim my blog towards the elder generation and who are looking for help with coding a sort of helpful guidance blog if you like. It will be full of helpful advice and guidance as to where to find helpful resources to help one's coding journey.
The issue I have is getting my mind over this matter of 'You can't do that!' to 'Yes you can do this and you are going to!'
Wish me luck and good luck and happiness to you all!
Many thanks to @apolymask who brought me to this wonderful platform!
That's interesting that mom is an acronym for mind over matter, I never realized that before.
I agree significantly in regard to your thoughts on age and have been hearing more and more people say things like "life begins at 50" or even older and personally from my experience I feel like life has deepened more in the last few years to the point that I can really relate with those kinds of statements.
I wish you well in your decision about going to work in Gibraltar or becoming a freelancer! I hope it works out for you whichever one you choose.
Sounds like you've got some good experience for tech jobs and I can definitely relate to preferring to be out in nature as opposed to a big city!
I'm not one to really give advice, but I do like encouraging people to follow their dreams! In regard to a blog site, sounds like good subject matter and it may or may not work out for you as I see a lot of people try and some succeed and many do not, I wonder how much the monthly cost is when you can host a blog for free on sites like this one?
If you do go for it I wish you the best of luck! And you're welcome for the info about Hive, hopefully it can provide you with some extra income if you keep at it!
PS Beautiful nature/landscape shot you included! Cheers friend. <3
yeah, the MOM acronym just sort of came to me when I was writing and thought 'MOM' goes well, especially as being English we pronounce MOM as MUM and that would not have worked.
The monthly cost for the blog is about $12, to which at the moment I can live with, but, I have thought the same as you, why get a blog and pay when I have this platform to which pays me, something to dwell on for the next day or so!
Thanks for the compliment on the photo!
You should perhaps consider starting a community here called MOM?
I started Silver Bloggers knowing very little about setting up a community, but am learning as I go along; much more comfortable just blogging but a community is a great way to connect people with similar interests.
Silver-Blond Lizzie