FREELOADERS ARE ANNOYING, BUT THEY AREN'T EVIL
Dear Diary,
Constant freeloaders are wearing my skin thin! They are wearing down my patience and leaving me feeling terribly disgruntled. Perhaps I have given too much of myself or invested too much of my own creativity in others' pursuits and as a result it has left me feeling the ‘glass half empty’ whatever the reason, I am irritated to say the least.
What is the perfect balance of give and take? How can I assure that my giving is going well-received and appreciated at the very least. It appears, the more apparent the problem becomes, the more I want to see the trend in this freeloading frenzy. Who are these people?
Maybe it's the marketing dork in me, but I like to analyze, optimize, and find trends in things. What I have noticed is that freeloaders aren’t evil. I have taken a good hard look at who these people are outside of their business pursuits, and have discovered they are truly extraordinary people looking to do great things in this world, at least that's what it looks like from the outside. They work hard to bring their message to light, marketing themselves in rather unattractive ways (in my opinion), but mostly they have difficulty seeing how they are standing in their own way and bugging others with their problems too frequently.
“What I have noticed is that freeloaders aren’t evil. I have taken a good hard look at who these people are outside of their business pursuits, and have discovered they are truly extraordinary people looking to do great things in this world, at least that’s what it looks like from the outside. ”
But just as there is a yin to every yang, their is also the dark side of the freeloader. Many of the freeloaders I have had the not-so-pleasure of meeting and working with are rather self-indulgent— as if they are the only one working their tail off to bring their magic to commerce. They preach their wisdom, practice holistic living, and overcompensate about how they are an expert in their field (even go as far as to embellish about how successful they really are or are NOT), but I have to wonder sometimes… is it all a big facade?
I work with women entrepreneurs, so just as I know how my sister ticks (because we have the same blood running through our veins), women entrepreneurs are wired a certain way, and when you understand ‘your kind’ you see through the bullshit. Many of these entrepreneurs are lying between their teeth, acting like they are more successful than they are, pretending to be sensitive when hurt while simultaneously plotting some evil email or passive aggressive scheme to let you know you crossed them. Big whoop.
What I FAIL to feel in these cases of freeloading baloney is sorry for them. I don't feel sorry for you! I know no one works harder than me; i put in 16 hours a day building my business and sacrificing downtime in order to build a company that I am proud of so one day I will be able to purchase my dream home and travel without a budget. It might not be their dream, but it sure is mine and i plan to make that dream come true with good ole fashioned HARD WORK not griping about how someone didn't promote me enough.
I wasn’t brought up expecting things to be handed to me, in fact, it was the cold harsh chill of life that gave me the work ethic and the I can do-it-alone mentality that has me typing away working on my business to the wee hours because I know business is NO easy task. In fact, I often tell my friends that if they truly don’t want to have their own business, by all means DON’T! It’s not going to be handed to you on a silver platter just because you redid your website and it still looks like crap.
Freeloaders fail to realize that nothing will be handed to them when you EXPECT something SHOULD be done for you… especially without paying someone for their service or product. No matter how special you think you are, how beautiful you think you are (the pretty girl syndrome), or how you’ve spent most of your life getting everything you wanted because daddy made sure of it, I promise you, you WILL have to work for it, pay for it, and give thanks to those who were kind enough to invest in your vision.
Bottom line.. freeloaders might not be evil, but they are annoying. And I’ll put myself in check right now because bitchy entrepreneurs are annoying too. Tomorrow I’ll try to be less of the latter.
-Angel
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