Why I work on this

Erijoy gives me hope through action

With every mini step I take for erijoy, I feel like I redirect (my) attention to the stuff that matters - that I “grow the good ones”. Slowly but steadily, I promote all the amazing existing stuff, and here and there, I come up with a stupid new idea to twist our environment a bit more they way I want it. It’s my best counteraction to consuming negative news or addictive random content on Insta/Twitter etc. 

I would work on this no matter how much money I have 

I had my months long phases in life where I didn’t work at all, which made me very sure that it’s not ideal for me to work 0 per week. Plus, I saw too many examples where people got financial independent, but then ended up working anyway. I need a worthy struggle all my life, and I think, that is erijoy for me :) 

erigem No. 66

So do I really need to wait until I have X money to work on this, just for a few minutes per day? I do not think so. If I could choose between lying on the beach all week, work for any company or charity in the world, I would work on erijoy because I’m 100% aligned, and it’s fun.

That took a while until I realised this - it all started with me having the time, space and love around me to ponder about what to work on. While living the big city life in Berlin, on the 23rd of November 2020, I bought the domain whattoworkon.com .. for $4.15 😂

I started writing about the most rational approach to “what to work on”, including what Elon Musk is doing to prevent humanity from extinction and what the most effective charity to donate to is. But what would be my most aligned approach to “what to work on”?

Through writing, it became clear what I wanted to have - or work on - in life, and acted on it. So (1) I got a remote job in 2020 (2) started living mostly in this sunny, walkable village from 2022 onwards (3) with nice people, and (4) had fun doing sports.

In June 2024, I was like, ok, I kind of realised for myself what my conclusions for “what to work on” were. Eating healthy was still not super convenient yet, so let's work on that. Also, the pain of not having yet “created something of value for others” was so high that I started talking with people in real life about whattoworkon.com.

That led me, at some point, to talk to Weslei Dias from Ericeira Eats and ask him to list private chefs (with their healthy and tasty food) in his food delivery app. But then I thought, well, I can bring it to reality faster, if I promote healthy food myself on a website anyway.

Then my friend Zé came around the corner and started talking about how he really wanted to build a platform where you can book all the things in Ericeira (like massage therapists, surf lessons, or dog walkers). So now with erijoy you can find and book some of Zé's useful and some of my healthy stuff.

It’s fun because nobody tells me how to write

When I started erijoy, I actually wrote “normal” product pages - until I was like: why? Why should I make it boring, now that no boss is telling me to make it “professional”? So I started writing them the way I actually had in mind and why I think more people should buy all the local stuff. Whenever you read something mega weird here and there, be sure I did that to have a good laugh with a friend.

It’s fun because it’s my little piece of art

Turns out I really like creating digital art - in the sense that I enjoy playing with pieces of software, features, and words, so stuff like the Chinese sticker banner pop out of my mind. Sometimes I cannot stop myself from hacking it together. Better artsy fun than drawing or knitting for me :)

3 people claim they’re the only biggest fan of the site

By now 3 people have admitted to me personally, that *they* are the only biggest fan of the site, and can’t wait to see the next thing happening, so yea that keeps me going. I’ll keep being weird for them so they feel a spark of joy, and I do too.

Things to do in Ericeira

 


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