Some call the new pattern of working from project to project the “gig economy.” Instead of having a predictable job, more and more people are contractors working with a particular person or company for the length of a project. Cool idea in the world of self-directed careers, because it allows people to have more control over their schedules.

But the phrase doesn’t even come close to capturing the joy of experimenting and playing and expanding our minds and our abilities that we experience as the creatively self-employed. That’s what Barbara Winter calls the “Joyfully Jobless life.” It’s joyful because it’s an adventure of self-discovery.

Leave it to Seth Godin to capture this wonderful idea in a high-octane analogy: surfing. In this recent post he compares the joy from work that grows us by developing our gifts and talents with the intoxication of the next wave for the surfer.

I can see the surf breaking in the distance with the sun rising on the horizon behind it as I round the corner on the Twisting Road.