You started for a reason. It's a fun thing and when the first few paid as well, it seemed too obvious not to.
There's no lecture here about how much is too much. You already know, or you wouldn't be searching, certainly wouldn't be reading a therapist's blog. So let me say this small thing instead, the one that might just keep coming up.
When did the side hustle stop being on the side?
What happened to an hour here and there?
The hobby became a funnel, then a leaky bucket. It needs more now. More time, more effort, less sleep. The thing that lived on the edge of your life feels like it's running your diary. The money isn't enough yet, you need it more than when you started.
How?
Here's a piece of it. Work used to have an edge.
Your grandparents might have worked two or three jobs, lots of hours, some not given so much as borrowed or stolen. They made the ends meet, set the example, and hoped it meant your parents had it better than they did. It was hard, but when the work finished, they did. They got to go home, eat at a table and have a day off once a week that meant jobs around the house instead.
It sounds so different. A little like a human sized, lifelong trap. And yet because of it their day had edges. The routine that keeps you healthy: work–home, work–home.
The elusive freedom YouTube told you about, the story from the gym locker room, a mate's mate doing it so well he's quit the day job, and the clever line about waking up to check your balance and see what you earned overnight. While sleeping.
Sleeping, oh come on.
You're open all hours.
The window to your shop never sleeps. No hooter, no whistle, no creaking factory gate, all of them saying the same thing. Go home.
Nobody asked if that was alright. The edge just went blunt with a blurry line taking over. One you have to draw yourself, over and over, because it won't hold, not on its own.
Picture your gran talking about those three jobs.
There's a brightness in her eyes when she does, a reality she owns, made by a body that got to stop, sleep, sit at a table, be somewhere that wasn't work.
Yours comes from a bottle of eye drops and a high-sugar, high-caffeine hit in a can. Not because you're soft. Because the recovery that made her brightness isn't in your day any more, so it has to come from somewhere.
Then there's the way she tells it.
Respect, a bit of amazement, and not only because she did it. Because she's on the other side of it, telling the tale.
It ended.
She gets to look back.
There's no looking back for you, you're still in it. The ends don't meet, not yet. There's no point working out your real hourly rate against the time, energy, lost sleep, the emotional cost of never being off.
You can't total that column, because you already know the number is bad, and knowing doesn't mean you can stop.
For a second or two, just suppose you did. Who would you tell? Whose table is this?
The comments under the video that said dare to dream?
Gran knew.
Those hours took a toll, she'll tell you that another time, in another conversation. She had a north star, that showed her the way home and reminded her who she was.
Yours is different. Something changed in the early 2010s, and not just for you, when ambition stopped being enough on its own.
That compass doesn't work the same way today.
She'd recognise the destination but not the route. You squeeze so hard on the things that can be optimised that they are wrung dry. When it still isn't enough you're left with earning so you can earn. There's the modern trap.
No day off, not enough sleep, and no table to talk around.
No wonder you're using hustle time searching.
It's a quiet table. Just you, a screen, and a lot of tabs telling you to do the things you tried ages ago that didn't work. Draw boundaries. Treat it as a part-time job. If it's not fun, don't do it.
Please.
So you sit at the quiet table and click away. I don't blame you and while you're here, another question might just come up.
What would it be like to invite someone to sit at your table and listen to your story?
Who would you ask?
Who'd turn up to honour that invitation?