Get Your Hustle On

Hello, this is the Aussie speaking. The reason I say that, apart from being, well, the only white girl around here (and getting called "white girl" very ocasionally, which I don't mind either), is 'cos I guess that might explain why, for a long time, I didn't really get what "hustling" was. I mean I thought it had something to do with drug dealing or whatever, but I didn't realise it could mean selling drugs, selling your body, selling baby clothes. Hustling is about taking control of your life and then, doing whatever you can to get paid. I used to have a boyfriend who would get up every morning, sit at the table with his glass of orange juice and say, "There's a shitload of money out there in the world, so how today am I going to get some of it?" He had the right attitude.

We were talking about this the other day, how you actually can hustle for just about anything in life. I mean, people just don't think like that but in many other countries you never accept their first offering price. As Miss Saigon puts it: "I'm not fucking anybody, I'm just getting un-fucked." So true.
So seeing Saigon Customs' engines working from the inside-out, I'm inspired to think about making the jump to independent myself. I always thought that having a steady, secure, "okay-ish" job would be enough for me as long as I could paint and write on the side. But I've been in my first real job for exactly 13 months before this (and they are amazing, they even gave me the time off to come and intern here) and I'm already thinking "you know what? fuck it". And I have a GREAT job, the type that they'll fill in a week or so. Why the fuck would you throw all that away?

Well, first of all, the money. Yeah yeah I know there's like the whole "starving artist" thing vs Mr 9-5, steady paycheck man, but as Miss Saigon said yesterday, she knows that as an independent, even though there were quiet times, she could "rack money" she "NEVER would have made" if she had been working for somebody else. It's true, right? I mean at some point in your life - if you even think about shit like this anyway- then you're going to have to decide: do I sell myself to somebody who's going to make 2-300% off of my work and enjoy the convenience, the security, the retirement plans, the credit scores and all the rest of it. Or do I hustle? I guess people just don't think about shit like this, 'cos money-wise in the end it doesn't make much sense. I mean, who are you working for? A hustler. That's right, somebody who thought, fuck it, I can organise myself a bigger slice of that tasty pie. And they got so big they ended up needing you to help them. For what? Some crumbs? So I don't see why you wouldn't want to hustle, unless you're all, like, tired and lazy and whatever. I mean you DEFINITELY can't be lazy if you're going to hustle and survive.

So, writing this (giant-behind-the-keyboards-style) I sound all staunch and motivated but, knowing me, being a security-loving Cancerian there's an excellent chance I'll chicken out after this internship is over and go back to my totally rad existence sitting at a computer in an office somewhere. But at the same time, I know the seed has been planted. When you've been around somebody who's made it work, then that makes a big difference in you thinking "I can do that too". So I guess I'll wait and see.