I am also a freedom fighter. Right now, I am freelancing. I am a small-time freelancer which means I make enough money to take care of my current expenses and some savings for the future.

What motivates my freelancing career is similar to your views. I get the freedom to work with the "right" clients. I have freedom to do my work my way. I don't have to deal with company politics. If I smell politics, I don't work with a client.

I have my own way to screen potential clients to check if:

1. I have freedom to do my work
2. There is never more than 1-2 stakeholders to report to
3. I have freedom to do production releases
4. I have freedom to make silly mistakes and not feel bad about it
5. There are no deadlines

To enable my freedom, I lower my hourly rates to just $30 /hr. Since I live in India, a low-cost country, that is sufficient to take care of my current expenses and some savings for the future.

Thanks. My philosophy spot on. I am happy that I didn't have to do years of hard work to realise it, however now you have done that, you have great experience that I won't get. You also start out with a very good network of people, that's valuable.

I have a great article I found, about this, I would like to share it with you, if you want?

"...doing something that intrinsically motivates me."

<bingo!>Roger that.</bingo!>

Thanks for writing this, Daniel Vassallo. I am sure many developers are facing similar issues and this article will help them.