One of my book club selections this week is Life Entrepreneurs by Christopher Gergen and Gregg Vanourek, and they had something interesting to say:

In his book, ‘Free Agent Nation,’ Daniel Pink points out that, counting temporary workers, microbusinesses, and freelancers or “soloists,” there are over thirty-three million free agents in the U.S. workforce today—more than 25 percent of the total. Every year, seventeen million Americans change their jobs. These trends are now going global. Pink describes the dream of today’s young people: “Not to climb through an organization, or even to accept a job at one, but to create their own gig on their own terms.”

This made me realize that I, my husband, my good friends Claudia, Chuck, Yolander, Gayle, and Lynne are all pursuing this very course. And those were just the people I could think of without straining very hard. Somehow the notion that we’re “creating our own gigs,” offers a little dash of comfort and optimism as we watch the economic death spiral. Would it be reassuring to have a steady biweekly paycheck and group health insurance? You bet. But 25% of us in the American workforce have created something a little less traditional, and we’re okay with that.

Solidarity, friends.