If I'd ever felt lost before it couldn't have compared to now. I sat thumbing through the want ads, but my heart wasn't in it. It wasn't just a job I was looking for—I had one of those. I'd worked for years in one office or another and those jobs were okay, as jobs go, but at the end of the day they left me feeling—empty.

The trouble was I didn't know what I wanted to do, exactly. I knew the things I loved to do, even could be said I was good at. Distant whispers of parents and grandparents telling me as a child "that's wonderful," "that's beautiful," "how lovely," always followed swiftly and without apology with "but you can't make a living at that."

It never really dawned on me to doubt that childhood admonition. It seemed true enough. The old "artists are only famous after their dead" appeared to be a truism that I would have to live with, and probably not even accomplish at death. I wasn't Rembrandt, or Picasso. As a media artist, I wasn't even Matt Groening.

My true love, writing, seemed even more elusive and I wasn't Stephen King. After many attempts and long nights learning from other writers and publishers online I'd come to the realization that even those on a level with Stephen King lived life as a crap shoot of "if you get lucky."

So, what was it I could do that would make what I did for a living a career, not a job? Certainly nothing offered in the want ads that were growing weary and crumpled beneath my fingers as I sat there staring at the page.

"Check this out," a friend typed to me on my computer screen as I stared at it, having tossed the want ads aside long ago. The little LED lights of my alarm clock gleamed in the darkness of my room illuminated only by my computer screen. They warned me of the coming dawn, and a new day of drudgery at my job.

"I have to get ready for work in a bit and haven't slept all night," I typed back getting ready to shut down, feeling as hopeless as I had at the start of the night.

"Before you go check out that link. You'll like it. I've been making money while I concentrate on my 'real' writing," my friend insisted to the point I couldn't ignore her. Making money was always a good thing. "We all need a little extra spending cash, right?" she demanded to know.

Sure, sure, always, so I clicked on the link.

A bright bold website captured my eyes and my weary mind snapped to attention. These were not jobs, they were… opportunities. A way to make money while doing the things I was actually good at and loved, and also incorporate my abilities learned from years of working on the outside, and I could do them right from my home! A little nagging doubt ate at me about being 'too good to be true," but I shoved that little devil aside and signed up.

Shutting down my computer, I crawled into bed. Dreams of spending my free time doing website management, design and other work that the freelance website offered up wouldn't let go of my imagination even in my sleep.

When I got up in the morning, I sipped a steaming hot cup of coffee wondering if it were really possible that there were companies out there who outsourced these opportunities. If I could make a living as one of the people companies used to outsource their writing assignments.

After work, I rushed to my computer and clicked on the search engine looking for more freelance websites. The plethora of options hit me like a brick. Where had I been all this time?

That was five years ago and since then the world of freelancing has grown to nearly epic proportions and I have long since thrown off the cloak of a nine-to-five grind.

Working from the comfort of my couch, or when really pressed my designated home office, I type away the day providing my talents for those who seek work completed by freelancers like myself.

It isn't a job—it's a career. It's what I was looking for and I have finally put those past whispers of "you can't make a living with that" behind me. Yes, I can - and you can, too.