I Needed to Go Offline to Be Happy Again

Here's how I did it, while earning more than ever                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Forwarded this email? [Subscribe here]() for more [I Needed to Go Offline to Be Happy Again]( Here's how I did it, while earning more than ever [Ash Ambirge]( Dec 1   [READ IN APP](   There are men here today, jacking up [the weird, old house](. Did you know you can LIFT AN ENTIRE HOUSE??? INTO THE AIR??? OFF THE ACTUAL GROUND??? There is so much I don’t know about life. I am continually surprised by it all. You get to a certain age and think you know stuff, but really all you know is your stuff. The stuff you learned about how to eat an oyster, and how to tie a neck scarf, and how to schmooze with some blowhard named Oscar, and how to exit a conversation when Linda from HR won’t stop talking about her cats. These are soft skills. These are polish. These are the things that are valued among the liberal elite. I learned these skills because I had to. It was how I created economic opportunity for myself and learned to navigate the greater world, as a girl who grew up drinking Keystone Lights, riding around dirt roads. Now that I am back, buying this big old 1873 farmhouse in the rural Pennsylvania countryside, it is incredible how little those skills translate. There are no oysters, there are no neck scarves, there is no schmoozing, there are no fancy dinner parties. Here, what is valued is different. How useful are you? Can you change a tire? Can you [gut a pig]( Can you plunge your toilet? Can you drive in ice? Can you chop the firewood? Can you [set the mouse trap]( (save us all)? Can you burn your boxes? Can you light the pilot? Can you drill the hole? Can you swap the outlet? Can you be brutally self-sufficient? When I first got here this summer, I couldn’t do any of these things. (Well, except for drive on ice: I am an excellent ice driver. I did grow up here, after all, but that was during a time when I didn’t have to do adult things—like find someone to chop down my dead ash trees ASAP so my homeowner’s insurance doesn’t cancel me. THIS IS FUN.) Now, I can do all of them. It’s only been a few months, and yet, I’m acquiring an all-new skill set here. I am pretty sure I need to star in the next cheesy Hallmark Channel “city girl buys old house in the country and re-discovers the meaning of life” movie. Of course, LIFTING AN ENTIRE HOUSE OFF THE GROUND WITH A SIMPLE JACK still seems a bit beyond the pale for me. 😂 To be fair, it’s not really a simple jack: these are the kinds of jacks that are meant to hold twenty tons of weight. (Or some outrageous number.) We’re doing this so we can reinforce some of the sagging floors that are making my downstairs toilet (hilariously) crooked; one of the beams was failing. The post had gone right through it. When they pulled it out yesterday, I grabbed it and thought, “Oh, I shall like to have this framed in a shadowbox as a historical artifact of the house!” And then I dropped the fucking thing on the ground, and it shattered. In other words, I’m really glad I had that rotting beam holding up the house. 🥴 [Upgrade to paid]( As they are downstairs building me a sweet set of concrete block piers, I am up here writing with my coffee. Soon, I will mosey into the kitchen and begin painting. Yesterday, I covered up all of the mustard-yellow walls with primer—it’s incredible how much better it looks already. Today, I’ll be painting the walls Timeless, from Clare Paint, and the trim Whipped. This is how I spend my afternoons now: [chopping wood and carrying water](. Mostly figuratively, but sometimes literally. You should see me with a chainsaw! I can’t tell you how good it feels to get offline. To work with my hands. To make anew—both a project, and parts of myself. At some point, I’ll wander into the woods on the property in search of a collection of tree branches. I’m going to polyurethane them all, and then create a beautiful sculpture for the wall. I have a bunch of [these CB2 wall planters]( in black, which I’ve staggered. How artistic will a bouquet of bare tree branches look cascading down it? IT WILL LOOK BOUGIE AS HELL, THAT IS HOW IT WILL LOOK. After dinner, I’ll pick up my book. I’ve been enjoying [Grace Dent’s writing]( quite a bit (she’s a British food writer with a fierce personality), as well as [Nina Stibbe]( (also British!), and of course, [Catlin Moran](. (ALSO BRITISH.) I’m thinking of Europe for the holidays. Christmas markets. Wool coats. Mulled wine. Rosy cheeks. Stylish Airbnbs—you know, the ones that have the washer and dryer combo machine, usually somewhere near the kitchen sink, that is just so European??? I haven’t been to Prague yet—this feels like a must. Vienna, too. London is my greatest crush. And Edinburgh, might it be nice to be there, decking the halls? Perhaps I’ll visit them all. I am so grateful for this life that I get to live. Sometimes, I forget just how in charge of it I really am. It is easy to feel pressured by other people and what they would like you to do. It is easy to pressure YOURSELF into what you think you should do. It is easy to be too nice, too accommodating, too thoughtful, sometimes. I am the queen of not wanting to hurt other people, and as such, I have often found myself making decisions just to avoid that conflict. But, can you ever be true to yourself if you’re spending all of your time placating everybody else? This is one reason why I, out of necessity, developed [The Selfish Method](. It’s my approach to making money online without having to be so ONLINE. But really, it’s about living a healthy, joyful life full of meaning and money. For me, it all starts with the work you want to do in this world, and how you can set it up strategically, so you can DO that beautiful work AND earn big, beautiful money using technology to help you along, while still having plenty of time for pleasure in your days—like painting your kitchen a beautiful new color, or going outside into the forest to collect tree branches, or losing yourself in hours and hours of reading. Pleasure is SO important. And frankly, it’s what most online businesses are woefully missing, what with the intense pressure to be online everywhere, on all social media platforms, making TikToks, trying like hell to take a good photo of yourself, not knowing what you should post on Instagram, trying your hand at LinkedIn, trying to keep up, trying to get seen, trying to do anything remotely exciting. It’s a lot. It’s maddening. And worst of all? It’s the least effective way to make money from your passions. Most of us are not going to become social media influencers. In most cases, that’s not the actual goal. And yet, we get confused because this is what we see everywhere, and assume this is what WE need to do. It is not. Being an influencer is different from being a real person, running an honest business, based on their true passions. Therefore, we need an all-new strategy to support that. Because, this I know: it doesn’t have to be so hard. It doesn’t have to be so exhausting. It doesn’t have to be so complicated. I am living proof of that. I am working every day to live up to this ideal. Morning is for work. Afternoons are for pleasure. And evenings are for fun. And, wildly? I just had my most profitable year in the history of my online career. This all tells me I am doing something right. And, if we have the choice to live this way, shouldn’t we? Like I said, I am discovering more and more just how much choice we all have, once we commit to making happy ones. If you want to follow my exact “Selfish Plan,” designed to help you make more money with your passions online, while you do the majority of your work in the mornings and have the afternoons off, using little to no social media? My bestselling [Selfish School]( course is 30% off for just one more day using code CYBER30. [Get Selfish School for 30% Off]( I hope this helps you have more pleasure and more cash in your life. See you in Prague? Ash P.S. My powder room door finally shuts! The jacking up of the floors is workingggggg! The Middle Finger Project with Ash Ambirge is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. [Upgrade to paid]( You’re currently a free subscriber to The Middle Finger Project with Ash Ambirge. To get all of my posts & chat with me in the comments, upgrade your subscription. [Upgrade to paid](   [Like]( [Comment]( [Restack](   © 2023 Ash Ambirge 177 Huntington Ave Ste 1703, PMB 64502 Boston, Massachusetts 02115 [Unsubscribe]() [Get the app]( writing]()