The Dream That Was Sold To You

“Is 9-5 bad? Should I quite my job and be an entrepreneur?”

Escape the office.
Work from a beach.
Own your time. Be your own boss. Live fully.

That is the fantasy, packaged, sold, and delivered.

But most people who “escaped the matrix” just built a new one.
And most people who resent the 9–5 secretly crave the structure it brings.

The real problem is not the job.
It is the story you attached to it.

The Binary That Blinds You

You were told to choose:
Comfort or courage.
Stability or freedom.
Nine-to-five or full agency.

And like any good binary, it flattens nuance.
One becomes virtue. The other becomes shame.

But reality does not work that way.

Structure is not submission.
Autonomy is not always alignment.
You can be numb in both, or fully alive in either.

The danger is not in choosing a path.
It is in believing one will finally save you.

The Moment I Woke Up

I lived both sides.

When I performed well in school, I saw myself in a tower: high-paying job, career trajectory, prestige.

When I nearly dropped out, I flipped completely.
School became irrelevant.
Entrepreneurship became identity.

The idea of working 9–5 disgusted me.
The idea of the “rat race” made my skin crawl.

So I built. I pushed. I succeeded.
And I found myself working more than 9–5.
More pressure. More risk. More chaos.

I quit.
Went back to university.
And I kept building projects, ideas, and visions.

Then it hit me: I had never chosen freely.
I had been bouncing between two extremes.
Not because they were true.
But because I wanted to feel superior to one.

The Illusion Behind the Choice

Here is what you are rarely told:

• You are not broken for choosing stability.
• You are not brave just because you run a business.

Entrepreneurship is not a badge of superiority.
9–5 is not a surrender of potential.

The “rat race” you mock?
It makes your life possible.
You buy food late at night, you board planes, you scroll on apps, because someone chose that “boring” job.

On the flip side, I saw what happens when everyone tries to be their own boss.
In Turkey, I walked down streets with twenty barbershops.
Everyone hustling, no one thriving.
Too much autonomy, too little ecosystem.

Respect the employee.
Respect the founder.
But stop pretending one is the way.

The Path That Fits You Is This

The real question is not “Which is better?”

It is:

• What kind of life am I actually willing to live?
• What kind of pressure do I thrive under?
• What kind of boredom can I tolerate?
• What fears am I ready to face?

Because both paths ask something of you.
And both paths avoid something too.

Your job is to stop outsourcing your answer.
To stop using labels as proof of value.

There is no shame in structure.
There is no glory in chaos.
There is only what fits. Now, for you.

The Line I No Longer Cross

I stopped pretending the office was the enemy.
I stopped pretending entrepreneurship was liberation.
I stopped needing to hate one to validate the other.

Now, I choose based on my energy.
My decisions hold structure and fluidity.
I build slowly, intentionally, not to escape, but to align.

No more binaries.
No more projections.

Just truth. One decision at a time.

The Reflection You Need

“Behind every glorified lifestyle is a system built by people who rarely get credit.
Behind every ‘freedom creator’ is a structure that someone else maintains.
Freedom is not where you work.
It is how honest you are.”

Your Next Step

Now ask yourself:

• What story have I attached to being employed or self-employed?
• Who do I judge so I do not have to examine my own doubts?
• What truth am I avoiding by clinging to one model?

-> Write down your definition of freedom.
Not the aesthetic.
Not the Instagram version.
The one that costs you something real.

Then, start building from that place.
Quietly. Clearly. Fully yours.