Every job actually has its own freedom, it's just which freedom we like and of course everyone chooses a job with a high salary, whether it's working in a company or choosing freelance. In addition, if you think about it, freedom is not about work but about how we interpret a condition.
Office work can be financially stable, Freelancers are free not to have to come to the office and Business, free from superiors. Well, basically what we focus on will shape our mindset. And how perfect it would be if we did all three and could divide our time well which is much better for achieving financial stability in the future. Because the more income, the closer you will be to achieving financial freedom.
After years of observation and being a part of the industry myself, I've realized that freelancing is not as lucrative or full of freedom as people think it is. People think that one can earn a lot of money by spending less time through freelancing, but that's not entirely true unless you are someone who is extremely talented and has created a name that gets you high-paying clients even for small gigs or jobs. Otherwise, the amount of money you will earn will be directly proportional to the amount of time you spend.
It's pretty simple: freelancing works on gig to gig basis, which means that you get a gig or an order from a client, you complete it, and get paid once the client approves your work, so for you to earn more money, you will need to complete more work, and completing more work requires you to spend more time, not to mention the revisions your clients may ask which are free extra work that you do for them if they don't like something in your work.
So, things are not always as easy as they look like, and not everyone on social media will tell you the real struggle.
There’s a cult around the “digital nomad” but most people are living invoice to invoice, one Slack message away from a week without pay. Unless you’re top 1%, meaning, exceptional skill and personal branding so sharp it becomes its own gravity, freelancing isn’t a shortcut, it’s just capitalism minus the social contract
Freedom does not mean you control your time. But for most, time gets chopped into micro-tasks, endless project hunting, and unpaid client “brainstorming” sessions. That is just a different flavor of wage work with less predictability and no health insurance
It’s also bizarre how people think self-employment is an act of rebellion against the system. But the system is smart. It outsourced risk onto the worker and called it empowerment. Most freelancers are just solo agents absorbing volatility so big companies can stay flexible. Who gets real upside? The outliers. The rest are just spinning wheels in the hope that the next gig is the one that changes everything. You’re right, most people on social media aren’t going to risk the illusion by posting the months where their inbox is empty or their rates get undercut by someone in another timezone. But that silence is half the story. Real freedom isn’t about skipping the boss, it’s about not needing constant permission to exist. Most gigs won’t get you there