Recently a Buddhist friend mailed me, asking why I had written so little recently. He has a point. It is time for an update.
[edited dec. 19th 2014] My online business has taken a turn upwards, so instead of a job, I’m now seeking customers to supplement my online income [/edited]
The uncomfortable fact is that Google has sidetracked my business by changing their ranking policy. In other words: of the two branches of my business (web design and online publishing) the second is tottering on its last steps. It looks I’ll be making enough to make ends meet over Christmas, but after that it will not amount to much. Since I have never been able to live off my web design business, I will have to look for a job.
I am grateful for all I have learned over the years, for the house I was recently able to buy and for the time my business has given me to invest in myself. However, I will have to enter the normal world. I hope to enter the business equivalent to what I have been doing over the past 10 years: web editing.
Does this mean I have quit being interested in religion and spirituality? No, you know me better than that. In fact, I am planning to finish my bachelor’s in religion-studies at Leiden University this academic year. I also hope to start the academic program at Nijmegen University to become a mindfulness trainer in 2015. I have just finished the 8 week MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) course, in preparation for that program to become a mindfulness trainer. In addition I am finishing the online FPMT basics program about the four Buddhist philosophical schools (Tenets or Drubtha).
Back to you. Don’t worry, I will, when I have digested it, undoubtedly transform all that spiritual food into articles on this blog. What I need is time. Time to execute all those plans, to deepen my meditative practice and to translate the best of what I have learned into my own words. I will just have to get used to a world in which I, like most people, have to work 9 to 5 for my bread. These aspects of my life don’t have to hurt each other, I think, but I have no idea how often I will be blogging. You will all just have to wait and see.
In the meantime donations are welcome.
You can help by boosting my LinkedIn profile, especially the ‘skills’ column.
By the way, since Squidoo has quit their business, much of the content I had on there has been moved to Hubpages. Hubpages in their turn has made many of my spiritual articles invisible. I am moving a lot of it to Katinka Hesselink Net. Most prominently, for now, I have moved my lists of theosophical books. See also my list of Krishnamurti Books. While I am going through this process, there will be a lot of broken links on my website. This can’t be helped. I will fix those when the moving process is over. Given all the other things I have on my plate, this may take a while.
I’m so sad to read this Katinka. Times are much harder nowadays on the internet to make a living than they were 10 years ago… I wonder how ANYONE is really making money now, if they are not black hat scammers.
Even my quality self-help books on Amazon do not do much good, competing with 20 page rubbish ‘books’ loaded there by get rich quick operators… no idea what to do.
I sincerely wish you the very best in your endeavours… you have always been an inspiration and leader I looked up to on squidoo, I hate to see you struggling now when you had such a large niche carved out for yourself and your security.
But thankfully you have a home of your own now… a great start to future security.