Hang Up Your Own Shingle

Several years back when I was unemployed I sat in a downtown coffee house surrounded by less fortunate souls, and talked with a woman who had an online language translating business. I was hoping she would hire me. I think she had one other employee besides herself. She explained she wasn’t hiring, but encouraged me to set up my own business. ‘Anyone can hang up their own shingle,’ she encouraged.

I didn’t heed her advice. I needed security. I needed a secure salary, a 401K, health insurance, a nine to five. This was important to me because it had been elusive over the past decade to achieve it. As a freelance teacher in Germany and part-time teacher in the States, I had for years yearned for a higher salary, and for a job I felt would add meaning and purpose to my life. But that isn’t how it works is it?

I think several generations ago pretty much everyone was expected to hang up their own shingle. My grandfathers certainly did so. My mother’s father raised a family of eight children, and supported them through running a delivery service in the countryside, then later on by operating a dry goods store in town. My father’s father was, according to his nephews, a beef peddler during the depression years, supporting nine children as well as nieces and nephews. Both managed to support large families during times of economic depression and national crisis through their determination and steadfastness. This has just recently started to really sink in with me. It trivializes my worry about being able to buy gourmet cat food before the next paycheck.

I think the key concept here is risk-taking versus risk-aversion. In the past, surely risk-taking was the only option for most people. Nowadays many of us, including myself, seek job security through risk-aversion, hoping to establish a small hovel and expect to actually thrive thus. Such illusions quickly dissipate, don’t they?

Hang up your own shingle, if you feel so inclined. You may fail or succeed, but in either case you will add momentum to your future