This week I wrote down, word for word, that I don’t think I want to keep making money online anymore. I wrote that I was ready to go back to a regular job. After 15+ years of online hustling, that’s not a small sentence for me to put on paper.
And the same week, I ran over 10 miles for the 10th day in a row.
So which one is the real me? The guy who wants to quit, or the guy who can’t stop showing up? I’ve been sitting with that for a few days, and here’s where I landed: the wanting-to-quit feeling isn’t always burnout. Sometimes it’s just boredom wearing burnout’s clothes. The trick is learning how to tell them apart before you blow up something that was actually working.
Why does making money online suddenly feel pointless?
Let me be honest about what the week looked like.
I’ve got a handful of side hustles that pay the bills. eBay. Etsy. A few other things. They work, mostly, and they’ve funded a life where I’ve been to 20+ countries while spending under $1,500 a month. But this week every single one of them felt like a chore. The same listings, the same messages, the same small wins that don’t feel like wins anymore.
On top of that, I’d poured a lot of hours into a cookbook project. Real hours, the kind where you skip the beach and stay at the laptop. And it didn’t work out. Not “it’s slow,” it just didn’t work.
That’s the combo that breaks you. A grind that’s lost its spark, plus a new bet that just died. Put those two together in the same week and your brain does what my brain did: it writes “I’m ready to go back to work.”
The thing is, I’ve been here before. Years ago I went and became a flight attendant after four years of hustling on the computer every day. I loved the people part of it. I talked more in those first couple months than I had in the previous four years combined. So I know that the “go get a job” fantasy isn’t fake. Sometimes it’s exactly right.
But I also know my own pattern. I run on about a 3-month excitement cycle. New project, huge energy, early momentum, and then the excitement fades and I start telling myself it’s “not bringing income yet.” Then I move to the next thing. I’ve done it with YouTube, with marketplace accounts, with NFTs, with coaching. I can describe it perfectly. Describing it hasn’t fixed it.
So when the “I’m done with online” feeling shows up, I don’t get to just trust it. I have to interrogate it.
What a 10-day running streak taught me about quitting
Here’s the part that made me stop and think.
On Tuesday I hit 10 days in a row of running over 10 miles. That’s 100+ miles in 10 days, in heat that would make most people stay inside. I didn’t miss.
On Wednesday I woke up with brutal nausea and couldn’t do anything all day. I spent $100 at a doctor’s office and called it a day. The streak was done. I lay there and did nothing.
On Friday I was back. Good workouts, no stomach problems, like nothing happened.
Notice what didn’t happen on Wednesday. I didn’t decide I was “done with running.” I didn’t write in my journal that I wasn’t a runner anymore and should go take up golf. My body was down for a day, I rested, and I came back.
That’s what real burnout looks like. Something is genuinely depleted, you rest, and when the tank refills you want to go again. The wanting comes back on its own.
Boredom is different. Boredom doesn’t come back after rest. Boredom is when the thing is working fine but your brain has stopped getting a hit off it. You can sleep 10 hours and take a week off, and you’ll come back to the same desk and feel the same flatness.
So the question I’m asking myself isn’t “am I tired?” Everyone who’s built anything is tired. The question is: if I took a full week off from the side hustles, would I come back wanting to build, or would I come back looking for a new shiny thing?
I already know the honest answer for the side hustles. Those are boring because they’re solved. That’s not a reason to quit them, that’s a reason to stop expecting them to entertain me. They’re plumbing. Nobody gets excited about plumbing.
The cookbook is a different story. That one didn’t fail because I was bored. It failed because it didn’t work. And a dead project isn’t proof that online is over. It’s just a dead project. The hours I put in taught me what doesn’t sell, which is the most expensive lesson in business and also the most useful one.
What happens when you stop chasing the feeling
The other moment from this week that stuck with me came on a walk on the beach. The conversation turned to meditation, and the person I was walking with said something I haven’t been able to shake: maybe I’m already zen. Maybe the reason people meditate is to get the happiness vibe I already walk around with.
I laughed it off at first. But then I thought about it more.
What if a lot of my restlessness comes from chasing a feeling I already have? What if the reason I keep jumping to the next project is that I’m looking for the rush of a new start, when the baseline I’m living at is already pretty damn good?
I’m sober. I run every day. I live by the beach for less than most people pay for a one-bedroom apartment. I’ve got income that covers my costs without me needing to scramble. I’ve always been a pretty happy guy, and traveling plus sobriety took that to another level.
None of that requires a new business idea. None of it requires a job, either.
What I think I actually want, if I’m honest, is two things the online grind doesn’t give me on its own: people and proof. People, because making money on a laptop is lonely as hell and I’m a people person. Proof, because I’m tired of building on potential and want something that’s real.
Those are both solvable without torching everything. You can get people by joining a gym, a coworking space, a run club, or yes, a part-time job you actually enjoy. You can get proof by finishing the one project you’ve already started and putting it in front of real users, instead of starting a sixth one.
The question to ask before you quit anything
So here’s where I’ve landed, and it’s the same question I’d ask you if you’re feeling the urge to quit right now.
What specifically changed? Not what feels different, what actually changed. Did the market die? Did the numbers drop? Did you learn something that makes the thing a bad bet? If yes, quitting might be the smartest move you make all year.
Or did it just get less exciting? Did the new-car smell wear off? Did the hard part show up, the part where it stops being fun and starts being work? If that’s the answer, quitting is just the 3-month cycle doing its thing again, and the next project will end in exactly the same place.
I’m not going to pretend I’ve got this one solved. The urge is real, and I wrote it down because I’d rather be honest than perform having it all figured out. But I’ve been running for 10 days straight, and the one thing that taught me is this: the body quits when it’s actually empty. The brain quits when it’s bored.
Learn which one is talking before you make the call.