I’m thinking about getting a job.

Financial gurus and new-wave monetization experts are not supposed to admit to jobs. Jobs are evil. Jobs are addictive. Jobs are for suckers.

Actually, that’s mostly true. If you’re taking a job because you’re too frightened to start a business, or because you think it’s the best or safest way to make money, it’s probably a bad idea. And for most people, it’s probably safe to assume that they’re getting a job for that reason.

But jobs do have uses. They are one of the quickest ways to get money. And depending on the job, they can be one of the cheapest education sources around — I don’t know of any other school that will pay you.

The fundamental question is, are you doing this because you want to impress someone? Because you think it’s a smart way to make money? Because you are afraid to tell your friends that you’re unemployed?

Or because you’ve examined your situation, and you’ve decided that having a job would be greatest help for your current monetization mix?

The Point Is, Do It On Purpose

Planning your monetization is something we’re never taught in school, partially because they assume you’re going to get a job, and partially because our school system was designed — if you trace it back to its source — by military leaders who didn’t want their subordinates to learn bad habits like thinking for themselves. So we’re taught to act like we don’t have control over our financial lives, that we’re at the mercy of our boss and the economy.

And it’s true, of course, that outside forces can affect your monetization capability. That’s why the first step of annual planning is examining the external situation. But you can then — and this is the bit most people miss — choose what you’re going to do in response to those external circumstances.

Monetizing yourself is anything that causes you to get money, whether it’s a business, a job, a website, or panhandling on the street. In Freakonomics, the authors discuss successful gang lords and drug dealers, who — it turns out — run their gangs as businesses, keeping records, handling customer relations, improving distribution, and so on. And I recommend that you run yourself as a business, regardless of what monetization method you’re currently using.

In an earlier post, I discussed changes in the economic environment that affect your monetization options. Even if you have a job, it makes sense to think of yourself as a business with one employee, leasing yourself out for 3-5 year contracts.

What do you do now?

What is your current monetization mix? Does all or most of your income come from one source? What are you providing of value to acquire that income?

What do you want to do?

What can you provide of value? What would it take to monetize those things? What will you need to do to get those skills and capital?

If getting a job will help you acquire skills, capital, or some other benefit to achieving your goals, by all means go for it. My boyfriend and I are considering consolidating our two-part-time jobs into one full-time job, freeing the other person to work on their business full-time.

Just remember that you’re using it to achieve your goals, not because you’re destined to stay in one job or one industry for the rest of your life.