The dilemma I face

bySamChen

258 followers

4 years ago

Hello, guys. It is my first post. If you check my profile, you will find I am an old member of WA. However, to be honest with you, I didn't really take WA seriously most of the time. The reason was, I was very busy. I am a professional and experienced subtitle translation freelancer. I have been in the industry for more than ten years. Actually. subtitler is a very good work-from-home job if you speak English and another target language. I think maybe I can write a post or a tutorial, or even create a website to share relevant experience in the future.

So I was very busy and being a subtitler is hard work. You have to do it yourself at all times. You lose a day's income by taking one day off. I often say, “Be a subtitler, when you have tasks to do, you feel uncomfortable, because the deadlines are always tight. A lot of times you have to stay up late to work. When you don’t have tasks to do, you still feel uncomfortable, because that means you have no income. And because of the limited time and human energy, the income is also limited.

To tell you the truth, my income was not bad, but like everyone else, I want to increase my income, so I joined WA in 2017. I think it is a great way to achieve it, but the first step is difficult, although I was busy, I was satisfied with my income. And as a husband and a father, I thought it was also important to maintain the existing standard of living. Maybe as a middle-aged man, I was increasingly reluctant to step out of my comfort zone. Because to learn something new is to sacrifice existing income. So, I updated to a premium membership, took a few lessons, and left WA there.

At the end of last month, without warning, an important vendor informed me suddenly, they would deactivate my account because my recent performance was not good. And it was a final and permanent decision. I still don't know why they did this to me. I consider myself a good subtitler. This led to a huge drop in my income.

Looking back now, I realized I had put most of my eggs in one basket. But now the situation cannot be changed, and I must fight again. On the bright side, I have time to study on WA now. I feel my future is still bright, but I think I face a lot of challenges. These challenges were there when I joined WA, and they still are:

1. I am Chinese, you can tell English is not my first language. English writing is a strenuous job for me. I am always worrying: Can English world people understand my writing? Even if they could, would they find my writing weird and not want to read it? And I don't know what to write and how to write.

2. WordPress configuration is a problem for me. I read lots of successful stories on WA. I visited those people’s websites and found most of those websites are not complicated but the layouts are clear and neat, and mine is a mess.

Maybe when I look back in the future, none of these are problems. I'm an introvert and I don't like to share what I think with people. However, I know that in order to succeed, changes have to be made, and this is just a small first step. Hope you can give me advice and encouragement. Thank you!