One and a Half Month Summary of Restarting My Life

It’s been a month and a half since I decided to pursue independent living, and 43 days since becoming a content creator (UP主uploader). So far, there hasn’t been any significant progress in terms of my existing skills, the digital nomad lifestyle, or content creation. Regardless, it’s important to reflect and summarize at each stage.

1 What I Have Done

1.1 Writing Articles and Making Videos

I have written 9 articles, gaining 17 new followers on my WeChat official account, with a total of 668 reads.

I made 5 videos, with the highest view count being the last talking-head video. On Bilibili, it reached 1,000 views, and on YouTube, it had over 100 views. On Douyin, it also got around 1,000 views, but the average watch time was just a few seconds, and I only gained one or two followers.

1.2 Starting a Consulting Service

Make use of the original Kubernetes skills to provide some consulting services. The pages for paid consulting have been hung on the WeChat official account and blog.

1.3 Project Research

1.3.1 Browser Plugins

Recently, I had a need to save Feishu documents shared by others. After some research, I found that several browser plugins already provide this functionality. Some of these plugins have been around for quite a while and are monetizing through advanced features. I did some technical exploration and realized that the implementation isn’t too difficult, but I will need to dive into the knowledge of plugin development.

1.3.2 WeChat Official Accounts

Topics like current affairs, workplace, politics, history, humanities, geography, and health attract a lot of traffic and are easier to monetize through ads. Niche fields rely mainly on private domains or knowledge-based monetization.

2 Ideological Fluctuations

When seeing some job opportunities, of course, I will also have some hesitation. Working can give me a stable income immediately. At least I won’t be in a situation without any income like now, and the direction is also unclear. Of course, continuing to work in technology has limited room for improvement. The most ideal situation is to become a CTO, which is basically impossible. The direction I am in can only go to large companies, cloud service providers, or open source commercial companies. The difficulty of promotion can be imagined. It is extremely difficult to get a promotion and a raise without growth.

And now the cost for me to trade with the market is too high, and it is very difficult to find a job. Even if I find a job, I will enter the previous cycle and it is very difficult to break this cycle. Choosing to be independent, I can go to a higher level and improve myself in all aspects. There are not many opportunities in life to try new directions. Take a chance and strive while young.

Although the path to independent survival is extremely difficult, it’s something I’ve always wanted to pursue. Its ceiling is high, and while I’m young, it’s worth taking the risk—maybe I’ll turn a bike into a motorcycle.

Of course, I’ve also considered the possibility of failure, where I might not make it or even struggle to survive. But right now, I’m already in the worst situation; it can’t get much worse. Doing something is always better than doing nothing.

The biggest burden in restarting life is the baggage of past experiences. I need to fully let go of that baggage, say goodbye to my former self, make up my mind, and move forward with courage.