I was a staff writer for a newspaper but had been doing side work in communications for five years. It built up to where it could be full-time work. Thus, things came to a head: I could keep doing the newspaper job or I could enjoy self-employment.

I chose self-employment.

And I’m glad to say that I have actually been able to help with really great things. (And I’ve rejected doing publicity for a company that feeds war and for a public figure who wanted me to publicize a frivolous lawsuit. I won’t abet things that are harmful.)

Since going out on my own and in doing the side work that enabled that opportunity, I have publicized Sony Pictures Television, Silicon Valley companies, a golf Instagram influencer, and the world’s leading advocate for a democratic, non-nuclear Iran, and I’ve done content marketing for Microsoft.

I have written for Vuukle, which is responsible for the option to click on emojis at the end of articles. (Vuukle is contracted with more than 400 publications to provide those emojis.) I’ve also covered a board trustee who, “by all accounts,” violated law for a check she cut, ghostwritten pieces about social issues like racial inequality and women’s rights in the Middle East, and copyedited for a tech startup. I was also able to write a letter to the European Human Rights Commission about press freedom.

Additionally, I have been able to promote a local organization that has built an affordable housing complex, an addiction recovery event, a boxing non-profit that helps youth, an initiative to help the still-innocent vote, the first transgender candidate for mayor in Utah history, a man who opposed the GOP nomination of Donald Trump for president at the 2016 Republican National Convention and was the plaintiff in the lawsuit that unbound national delegates under state law, a mass resignation from the Latter-day Saint church, a Nashville singer, a book warning of violence following a presidential election, an op-ed about a scientific/tech finding, a conference about free speech, a law firm that fights for consumers, a book about a man who developed bipolar disorder while arguably wrongly incarcerated, a small business enabling flutes to be played in wind for the first time in history, that is being trademark bullied, an artist who started a magazine promoting women artists, and a film at the Toronto Film Festival.

And I’m happier. Even being able to be on my own sleep schedule is a major benefit.