The rain makes me think DEEP THOUGHTS.

"I'm not going to worry about money anymore." Moments ago, while sending a text message to friends about evening plans, that thought popped into my head. It seems like a random thought, but if you know how my mind works (and anyone who's ever had a lengthy conversation with me knows that sometimes I will jump topics, but the jump always follows a logical-to-me pattern), it's not random at all. Something about the repetitive, slightly mindless nature of scrolling through my phone's address book allowed my mind to wander, and it wandered to being able to "do good work."

By "good work" I don't mean volunteering at charities and helping ducks cross the street and things like that. Those are valid pursuits, but that's not what I mean here. I mean being able to do work that is artistically fulfilling and exciting for the intended audience, whether it's a play, a film, a photograph, or a novel. I want to do good work. And I know that in order to do good work, I have to be nicer to myself. Being nicer to myself means turning off the Internal Editor and allowing my perfectionist tendencies to fall by the wayside. It also means not taking work that I don't want to do just because I "need" the money.

Don't get me wrong: money is a necessity. I have quite a number of bills to pay and not working isn't going to get them paid off. But neither is being miserable at what I'm doing, which will only lead to my quitting and, you guessed it, not working. So it's important to me to only lend my time and energy to creative pursuits that I can look back on and think, "Wow am I glad I was a part of that." I've been blessed in that majority of the work I do *is* artistically fulfilling, but there are some things that - because they made my life unnecessarily complicated and stressed me out - I would leave out of my life if I had to re-do that section of my history.

So that, my friends, is what brought me to "I'm not going to worry about money anymore." Why should I when worry will not increase my bank account or bring me the jobs that I want to do? SARK says to "Do what you love. The money will follow." She also says that it might take a while, but it will happen. I think that's true. So for me, if it means turning down something that might pay me well but will take a big chunk of my piece of mind with it? It's not worth the cost.