Amman — At the beginning of each month, Youssef sits down with his financial obligations, trying to organize them around his salary and reassessing what can be postponed and what cannot be given up.
اضافة اعلان
Youssef works in architecture and spends most of his time at his job, but his income is no longer giving him the financial room he needs to cope with rising living expenses.
With each new month, the same question returns: “Can he do something else alongside his job that would help improve his income?”
Youssef began considering freelance work and investing his architectural experience in providing services and taking on projects outside his working hours.
The idea was not far removed from his field, but for him it meant entering a new space, looking for opportunities, dealing with different clients and projects, and dedicating additional time to work whose outcome he could not predict. As he considered taking the step, another question arose: “Why does he continue with the same routine even though it no longer provides what he needs? Is it because of a lack of time, fear of trying something new, or because a familiar job, even when insufficient, feels safer than a new path whose results are unknown?”
Youssef’s story reflects the reality of many people trying to balance job stability with economic pressures, only to find themselves caught between the need to change their circumstances and the fear of losing what they have become accustomed to.
As financial obligations increase and life’s demands multiply, a salary alone is not always enough to achieve ambitions or provide a comfortable financial cushion, while increasing income can be difficult for those whose main job consumes most of their time and energy.
In such cases, the problem is not always alack of options, but rather the difficulty of seeing them or taking the first step toward them.
A person may have a skill that could be turned into an additional source of income, but postpone trying because they do not know where to start, fear failure, or believe that any change requires time and resources they do not have.
From an economic perspective, economist Hossam Ayesh says that considering an additional source of income does not necessarily mean giving up a job or risking financial stability. Instead, it can begin with gradually making use of existing skills after assessing available time, costs and opportunities.
In Youssef’s case, for example, freelance architectural work could build on his existing experience, provide an opportunity to expand his professional network, and allow him to test his ability to find new projects outside the traditional employment framework.
At the same time, Ayesh stresses that moving from an idea to implementation is not always easy. Additional work requires planning, identifying the services that can be offered, understanding the market, managing time, and being able to separate professional responsibilities from private projects.
He also notes that additional income is not guaranteed, and that reaching clients and building a professional reputation may require time and effort before results begin to emerge.
He stresses the importance of understanding sources of income and available employment opportunities, as well as managing financial pressures in a way that does not rely on rushed decisions.
Diversifying income sources may open new options for some workers, but it requires realistic calculations concerning the nature of the skill and demand for it, available time, potential costs, and the sustainability of the additional activity.
At the same time, hesitation about change cannot be explained by numbers alone. There is also a psychological and social dimension that sometimes leads people to continue along the same path even when they are dissatisfied with its results. A familiar job provides a degree of certainty, even if its income is limited, while a new experience presents multiple possibilities that a person cannot fully control.
From a sociological perspective, sociologist Dr. Hussein Khazaei says hesitation is natural, given people’s attachment to what is familiar and the influence of their habits and surrounding social expectations on their decisions.
For many people, job stability is associated with a sense of security and responsibility. Some may view a new professional experience as an uncalculated risk, even when it is carefully planned and carries limited risks.
He says the way individuals deal with failure and success depends on what they are accustomed to, as well as their mindset and approach to failure.
Some people, he explains, may fear not only losing money, but also putting in additional effort without seeing results or discovering that the skills they possess are not, on their own, enough to create a successful opportunity. As a result, staying in their current situation may seem psychologically less costly than trying something new that requires learning, self-promotion and accepting uncertain beginnings.
But remaining in the same routine also comes at a cost. Khazaei says: “Time that passes without developing skills or exploring opportunities reduces the options available in the future. Relying on a single source of income may also make it more difficult for some families to cope with unexpected circumstances.”
He stresses that balancing security and experimentation requires thought, rather than impulsiveness or surrendering to fear.
For Youssef, considering freelance work does not mean he has decided to leave his job. Instead, he has begun looking at his professional experience from a different perspective: Could the skills he uses every day at work serve as the foundation for another opportunity? Could he set aside specific hours each week for a small experiment instead of waiting for ideal circumstances that may never come?
Ayesh and Khazaei agree that the first step could involve starting a small project, developing a portfolio, learning about market needs, or connecting with people working in the same field. These steps do not guarantee success, but they move the idea from a cycle of repeated thinking into a space for testing and learning, allowing individuals to assess the results before making bigger decisions.
The issue is not that everyone should leave their jobs or that every person should become a business owner. Each individual has different circumstances, responsibilities and capacity for risk.
Sometimes, however, the beginning does not lie in changing one’s life all at once, but in stopping the belief that the familiar path is the only path.
Between a job that provides a degree of stability and an opportunity that requires experimentation, the most important step may be to give oneself room to think and plan, and to test one’s potential without putting everything at stake. The problem may not be that options do not exist, but that fear of the unknown sometimes prevents people from seeing them.
Resource: Al-Ghad.
