How Will You Spend Your First Paycheck?

When I started on Hubpages (HP) I didn’t write for monetary reasons although I will submit that I was interested in earning income. I was at a cross roads in my life. My Mother had just died of a very long brutal battle with Cancer and I am my son had been her sole care providers. It was a shock her healthcare providers put it in writing should was in remission and cleared for work 3 months before she died.

Starting Over

So I had no idea who I was beyond this daughter who had spent years caring for my Mother with Cancer. I was amazed at how brutal everyone was to me and my son after my Mother’s death. But I should have expected it as they had not been there for my Mother. Why would they be there for me or my son? So I had to start over and all alone.

The Gift

I can’t think of a better place to find your barring. And it doesn’t really matter what you write about but that you simply write and eventually you will find yourself once again. And that has been the gift all of my readers, commenters, raters and my HP community has given me. They offered me a place to heal and find myself again.

So money wasn’t my motivation but admittedly I needed a job. I have been out of work for years caring for my Mother. If anyone doubts my work ethic they can always refer to my time on HP. But then suddenly a nice surprise came which I never thought I would receive and that was a paycheck. So before you can think about what you will spend your paycheck on it will be on the way.

My Research

At the one year anniversary of my Mother’s death I opened up a research trial with my research partner. I wasn’t certain we would be able to prove our theory but we haven’t been able to prove the null. And for the last six months we have worked religiously on this research. In short it has improved cognition in children with Autism. We were as surprised as anyone at our success and we will have to replicate it. We are also looking for rapid delivery systems to enhance outcomes. And when my research partner insisted we create a non-profit so we could give our findings away I was a bit surprised. But then I thought of all the generosity shown to me on HP and I thought perhaps giving away a treatment for Autism might be a wonderful idea.

How Did I Spend My First Paycheck?

I didn’t have my hair done or buy myself anything but instead I reinvested my earnings from HP to create a non-profit organization to continue researching treatments to enhance cognition in socio-economically disadvantage, at risk and special needs children. And it is my dream to one day be able to write to you from different states about our non-profit and the children we are helping as well as different countries. The generosity shared with me has not been wasted and I am simply continuing in the same manner with my non-profit. There is so much pain and suffering in the world, I personally would be happy to part with my HP paycheck to easy the suffering of others and I am doing so in creating my non-profit. So the check went to pay for my non-profit. Someday I can get new shoes and have my hair done but today is about helping others. Now setting up a non-profit is not a simple matter and I am lucky enough to have many people who believe in my work so they can help me hammer out my bylaws in accordance with state law. And they have wonderful advice which I cherish but I never would have made it to them without spending time working on Hubpages first. We will be officially a non-profit as of June 1^st and I will submit our research to the editorial board of a professional publication in June as well. For those of you who know me and have suffered through my typos and misspellings you will be glad to know I have had my paper edited.

The Next Year

I don’t know how successful we will be but I am cautiously optimistic. We will need a patron over the next year and then to be able to apply for grants in the following year. It is a huge undertaking but we are starting locally since there are little to no services here. I hope to be able to share our progress here and I am certain my research and non-profit partner will insist on our own website. But we are going to start to change the service delivery model to children with ASD to enhance cognition or at least that is our goal. We have developed the technology to deliver these services on a massive scale. It is all a matter of time and funding now. And so when I started on Hubpages I was close to dead and now I am coming back to life. Writing resuscitated me. My friends you have brought me back from the brink and while I will never stop missing my Mother, I can now move forward with my life. And my first paycheck was an investment into giving to others. Isn’t that the nature of all writers?