I’ve been doing affiliate marketing for over a year now. In that year I’ve earnt more money than I made in the rest of my working life. I’ve quit my day job, gone a long way to securing my future, and made a lot of good contacts in the business. All a few months shy of my 22nd birthday.

But is it really worth it?

How much money does a man need before he’s finally happy? Everywhere I look, I see bloggers throwing out tips for how to make more cash. How to turn thousands in to tens of thousands. It’s great if you’ve got your back against the wall financially. But what is the end goal? What really makes you happy?

I’m tired of working 16 hour days, six or seven days a week. It’s gruelling. I’ve paid the ultimate price for it. I’ve lost something that actually matters.

I thought I’d get a lot of happiness out of running my own business – and I do. But it’s not what I want to be thinking about when I fall asleep at night. There’s more to life than affiliate fucking marketing.

So pro tip of the day: Take a break.

Go see the kids. Tell the wife you love her. Enjoy how far you’ve come. Whatever.

Just don’t be sitting there ten years from now with your only happiness being that split second it takes to refresh stats. I think I need to take a break and reconsider what I’m trying to achieve with my career. You don’t really hear much about it through the industry blogs – but if you’re sat at your 9-5 right now dreaming of a brighter future, this path isn’t always the right one. The life of an affiliate marketer is generally lonely.

I’ve been reading a book called Awaken The Giant Within by Anthony Robbins. Now I don’t normally buy in to the self-help bullshit that most of America seems to adore. But there’s a metaphor which is pretty fitting for what I’m trying to say:

Most people live what I call “The Niagra Syndrome”. I believe that life is like a river, and that most people jump on the river of life without ever really deciding where they want to end up. So, in a short period of time, they get caught up in the current: current events, current fears, current challenges. When they come to forks in the river, they don’t consciously deide where they want to go, or which is the right direction for them. They merely “go with the flow”. They become a part of the mass of people who are directed by the environment instead of by their own values. As a result, they feel out of control. They remain in this unconcious state until one day the sound of raging water awakens them, and they discover that they’re five feet from Niagra Falls in a boat with no oars. At this point, they say “Oh, shoot!” But by then it’s too late. They’re going to take a fall. Sometimes it’s an emotional fall. Sometimes it’s a physical fall. Sometimes it’s a financial fall. It’s likely that whatever challenges you have in your life currently could have been avoided by some better decisions upstream.

I remember interpreting that passage as people not taking a chance on their ambitions and one day realizing that they’ve achieved nothing. But there’s a different meaning when the river is money.

I used to think that making thousands of dollars every month would make me happy and open up the doors to chase opportunities that would otherwise be closed. It turns out, most of the things I was chasing were there all along.

Stop posting your links on Google and go do something worthwhile for the day. Better than living in regret.