Every week, it seems like a new person on my timeline is announcing they’re getting involved with a multilevel marketing business, branching off on their own, creating their own online business, or starting a small side gig for extra cash. Though we’ve always been taught to get a stable job after college, typically a 9-5 with rewarding benefits, the millennial generation (+ beyond!) is breaking through these normalities and creating a life for their own.

There is NOTHING wrong with working a 9-5, having amazing benefits, and stability. But there’s also NOTHING wrong with wanting a little more for yourself. The opportunities that we have today with various forms of technology and remote work possibilities are expanding by the second.

According to projections in the Freelancing in America Survey, released in October 2017 by the Freelancers Union and the giant freelance platform Upwork, 50.9% of the U.S. population will be freelancing in 10 years if a current uptick in freelancing continues at its current pace. Forbes predicts that the majority of workers will be freelancing by 2027. That’s only 9 years from now! If one of the most highly-read magazines in business, finance, technology (+ so much more) is predicting this, I’d say it’s something to start paying attention to.

Though many freelancing businesses are being done on the side, as a secondary source of income, the survey said that 29% of freelancers credit their business as being their sole source of income.

If you want to be a part of the 57.3 million freelancers in the U.S., what are you waiting for? The time is now! Life is too short to not be passionate, excited, grateful, and inspired by your work. Even if that just means holding a bake sale every Saturday morning to make a little cash on the side and do something that makes you happy.

Something my dad consistently told me as I was building my business is what I’ll leave you with today:

“If you don’t do it, somebody else will”

Happy 2018!