I was warned when I started freelancing that the longer you work from home, the smaller your world is likely to get. At the time, I viewed this as a positive (a smaller world meant fewer frustrating co-worker interactions and less of the office politics I had grown to dread) but after a handful of years, I’m beginning to uncover the inexcusable reality that on any given day I’m more aware of the fact that there’s a guy from my hometown on the current season of "The Bachelorette" than I am of the tensions in Korea or the gunman in England or exactly how many days the BP oil leak has been going on.
My life's setup makes it very easy to bury my head in the sand, which is problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which is how shocking and painful it can be to come up for air. I spoke today with a woman who works for an organization fighting human trafficking, a problem that has the tragic distinction of being the fastest growing crime on the planet, far more lucrative and less risky these days than trafficking weapons or drugs. A few hours out from the conversation, my head is still spinning and it’s nearly impossible to contemplate actually writing the article that was the reason for the interview. (Worse, somehow, to contemplate not writing it.) It’s so much easier to pretend it’s not happening, but the more I learn, the more people I talk to, the more aware I am of how much generosity and grace is out there too, and the more stories I’m desperate to tell.Not that long ago, I was writing training documentation that no one ever read for systems that no one ever used. Life has changed dramatically, and now I get to spend a portion of my time telling the impossible story of some of the world’s most disenfranchised people, raising awareness in people like me who sometimes would really just prefer not to know. Self employment has made my world a lot smaller, but in a lot of ways it has also made it immeasurably bigger.
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About the author: Lauren Anderson is a freelance copywriter, blogger, tweeter and recovering ostrich.
