Thoughts Close to Midnight

“One has to strike a balance between ‘making a living’ and ‘living’.”

“Most people foolishly let the marketplace enter their hearts.”

“Ask yourself how differently you would approach life if you realized happiness is within.”

“The greatest risk to one’s freedom is marriage. Yet marriage continues to be popular as an institution across all cultures in all epochs maybe because “it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity” as George Bernard Shaw put it.”

“Most people derive their happiness from physical pleasures, a few from intellectual pleasures, and hardly anyone from their own self.”

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
-- Winston Churchill

⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #WinstonChurchill #Giving #MakingaLiving #Life

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Guangxi #China #LiRiver #LiJiang #TowerKarst #Geology

A quotation from Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Essay (1888-09), “A Letter to a Young Gentleman Who Proposes to Embrace the Career of Art,” Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 3

More about this quote: wist.info/stevenson-robert-lou…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #robertlouisstevenson #art #artistry #commercialism #creativity #earnings #income #makingaliving #makingmoney #practicality #pragmatism #publicopinion #responsibility #writing

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
-- Winston Churchill

⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #WinstonChurchill #Giving #MakingaLiving #Life

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #MotorMill #Iowa

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
-- Winston Churchill

⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #WinstonChurchill #Giving #MakingaLiving #Life

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Mangrove #RabbitKey #Everglades #Florida

Imagine this.

One tutoring platform has customers paying through the nose, and gives a fixed 1/6 of the proceeds to the tutor. In some cases, a customer can tack on a bonus to a job ad, but those bonuses are rare and don't really correlate with the task they ask of the tutors. (I've seen two ads for Electrical Engineering tutoring... without bonus. Don't fucking tell me that this is the same as tutoring English or French.)

There's a second tutoring platform which gives 3/4 of the proceeds to the tutor. That's if they find a student for you. If *you* bring your student, you get 100% of the money. On this platform, you can negotiate an amount of money with the client.

(If you need help understanding the difference, imagine a job at $90. The first platform would give $15 to the tutor. The second would give $67.50. Notice the difference?)

I'm on both platforms. I have one student on the 2nd platform that nets me the same amount of money as on the first platform. *All* my other students on the 2nd platform net me more money than if I tutored them on the first platform.

The end result is that tutors are inherently motivated on the 2nd platform to get good rates for themselves, and as they get good rates for themselves, the platform also profits. It is a win-win situation.

On the 1st platform, the platform wins, but the tutor loses.

I'm about to leave that first platform, hopefully forever. It stinks. I still have one student there. I plan to break the news to him tomorrow or Friday that he should find himself another tutor.

#tutoring #MakingALiving #MakingALivingWhileAutistic

Another thing I've stopped doing when applying for tutoring jobs is that I no longer try to psychoanalyze the person making the offer.

I used to give a "rebate." If the person asked for $X/h I'd ask for $(X-10)/h. A $10 rebate per hour.

This strategy may have backfired on me. Instead of:

"Yay! I'm getting the same thing for less money."

I might have gotten:

"Why is he charging less? There must be a problem with this person. 😬"

I cannot *prove* this, but people being what they are, I bet this happened.

I now just ask for what they offer. Or I pass if I see a problem.

#tutoring #MakingALiving #MakingALivingWhileAutistic

Musings about tutoring...

I'm finally at the point where I can leave the first tutoring platform I was on. The pay is atrocious on that platform. I'm no longer seeking new clients there. I have one steady client that I intend to see through the end of the semester.

I'm on another platform that pays better. There, the clients can name their price. What I'm discovering is that the clients that name cheap prices don't have a horse in the game. $10/h for tutoring does not cut it. It's not just that this is not enough money. I doubt I'd have a client who cares. Students who don't care are not students I wish to tutor.

#tutoring #MakingALivingWhileAutistic #MakingALiving

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
-- Winston Churchill

⬆ #Quotes #WinstonChurchill #Giving #MakingaLiving #Life

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Sunrise #SacandagaLake #Adirondacks #NewYork