I Made My First $1000 Through Writing Online

And I am not going to tell you how I did it.

A few months ago, I finally made it for the first time — I earned over $1000 by writing online. How did I do that? I will not tell you here.

Just look at one of the thousands of articles on this topic — you will find a lot right away — because headlines like the one I chose for this article are very well received on the internet. Everything is full of them.

Why I am tired of such content

It’s sad to see how you can find tons of content on individual platforms — content that is only there to explain how to make it on those platforms.

Here on Medium seems to work best, explaining to others how they can make it. How they can build up a following, but above all how they can earn money with it — and that on the side.

Every day I look forward to the new posts of the content-creator I’m following — I’m just waiting for another to make his “I made my first $100 — here is how I did it”-post — because that’s what sells.

Admittedly, who is not interested in money — I can understand that. But as full as the internet is of tutorials that help you make your own big breakthrough, I really ask myself, what’s the point of it all?

Am I the only one who notices that it looks like a huge bubble?

It sells to write about how to write financially successful. This phenomenon is everywhere.

More people start writing because they imagine similar successes — but what should people write about?

Should they then simply continue writing about how to become successful through writing? This is a bubble, nothing else but that. And that’s not the only problem.

Selling your followers the dream that they can earn 5000$ a month on the side by writing is questionable. Especially if you made your 5000$ exactly with that — writing about how to write successfully.

There is no guarantee that you would have done the same with another topic — it’s like always in the market — supply meets demand, and at some point, both are in harmony.

At some point, this demand may be saturated. And what will the great writing results mean about exactly this topic then? What is the point of being able to sell something that nobody wants to buy anymore?

But at the moment, everyone seems to be interested in the topic of secondary self-employment.

When I first came to Medium, I discovered the chance to write about things I enjoy. I also found exciting content from other content creators, which I enjoy reading. But more and more, I and all of us are being bombarded with content whose goal is to make more money, reach more people, and so on.

I am now constantly surrounded by the idea that I could be even more successful by writing about what is better received—a terrible feeling. And many people certainly feel that way.

Where does this fascination for self-employment and entrepreneurship come from?

Sometimes I have the feeling that all this did not exist 10 years ago. Maybe a retrospect, 5 years ago, is enough.

I mean everything I associate with it — what I associate with Hustle-Culture, with people who want to build a second foothold, who want to become independent, who want to become a personal brand.

All these things did not exist 5 years ago, in my opinion, as strong as today — that is also what Google Trends shows. Here is the development of Google searches for the term “side hustles”.

This development is absolutely not an isolated case — I have done the same for other terms such as “passive income” — almost identical.

Nevertheless, it somehow seemed to work without at that time. Most of them worked in their normal jobs, lived the weekends, and drove a used middle-class car — and there is and was absolutely nothing wrong with that.

The world hasn’t changed much in the last 5 years — nevertheless, many more people are now talking about their 9/5, about being trapped in the rat race — all of them want to realize themselves, don’t want to have a boss anymore and want to pursue an activity that is really meaningful for them.

But how did this happen?

Of course, our society today is much more relaxed. In the past, life was simply planned — if you were born a farmer, you were a farmer all your life.

But we probably owe this development most to the internet, with its many new possibilities.

It’s no secret that people make a lot of money only through the internet, but the other truth is that most people will never have this success.

Why? Because that’s exactly how our economic system works — somebody still has to be a fireman, cashier, baker, doctor, etc. — otherwise, our society just would not work anymore.

One might ask whether we have become more materialistic because more and more people are interested in additional income.

But I believe that the change is happening in a different place — our idealism seems to depend more than ever on material wealth.

For example, everyone wants to travel a lot & have a lot of free time — and this is only possible with decent financial prosperity. So it’s not just about the money, but about what you can do with it to realize yourself.

Why the hustle culture could be harmful to us

As a society, we seem to separate ourselves from the romantic ideal of the simple life — and that is frightening. Social hierarchies exist in our minds — they are an integral part of us; we compare ourselves, strive for more, and doubt who we are.

So the idea of your position in the hierarchy depends on what you let into your head.

Believe me, if you only surround yourself with people who have more money than you do, you will quickly become dissatisfied with what you have — unfortunately, that is how we humans are.

So pay attention to what ideal you let into your head — we often strive for things we don’t know the whole picture of — and so we make decisions that give us positive emotions for the moment when we walk the path — until the path ends in nowhere.

A good example of this is the fact that we get used to material wealth.

I don’t know any Mercedes driver who still has to grin with joy every single day when he gets into his car — everything will become normal at some point. But still, so many people strive for a beautiful car.

But financial prosperity is not all that matters — among the many promises of hustle culture, it is about money and doing something meaningful — at least that is what many of these prophets say.

The promises and ideals of the brave new economic world can make you not only dissatisfied but also brutally unhealthy.

Among the more radical providers of programs for “financial freedom”, fear is often stirred up — the people who have been freed from the rat race by their expertise had previously had burnouts, depressions, no more time for their families, or were no longer able to provide for their livelihood — when they were working in the 9 to 5 jobs.

Of course, there are such fates — but when we as people are confronted with possible fears, we often don’t deal with them rationally.

I remember what it was like when my little sister first really realized that people are mortal. So she was confronted with a possible fear — the fear of death, the fear of losing someone she loves. Before she realized that, that fear did not exist. Logically.

A possible economic crisis, in which many people lose their jobs, is beyond many individual people's imagination. But certain people take advantage of this — they stir up the fear by implanting scenarios into people’s heads.

The same applies to the feeling of being stressed and frustrated with your work. All the hustle culture icons suggest that we could make more out of ourselves — whether that’s true or not is a matter of debate.

When we realize this, we don’t move slower than before on our map of life — but the map is getting bigger, there seem to be many more possibilities, and for some people, this leads to excessive demand.

Dissatisfaction with the status quo usually only occurs when we realize that there could be an alternative, better status quo — that’s exactly why questionable ideas about our own lives are so inflammable.

In summary, I can only emphasize that hustle-culture, the entire industry that lives from the new interest in independence, is not only positive. Of course, they are also an indication that equal opportunities are higher today than ever before. That everyone has many more opportunities to achieve something — the question is only at what price this will impact society.

Here are a few final tips on how you might be able to escape from mental scalping.

• Do not compare yourself with others. Never.
• You probably get used to every achievement in your life. So you better think twice about the things you call your dreams.
• I don’t really like excuses. But we are all different — with different talents and skills. What works for others may not work for you.
• The true sources of suffering in your life may be quite different from what you think. This might be the reason for prominent cases of rich people who have committed suicide — what they have achieved is perhaps just to exclude the suspected source of suffering as the true cause.
• You probably have much more than you actually realize.
• Focus on finding meaning in the things you already do.

Above all, I appeal to many other writers — please be careful about conveying what you do. Whether you show it the way it is — including a lot of hard work — or whether you simply sell many people the ideal idea, they could get too much money with little effort.

We all have a small responsibility for other people and also for the whole society. Everything we write and say has an influence. Therefore it is up to us not to put unsustainable ideas into people’s heads.