I’ve been asked which is the best trader profession a few times over the past week. I find it an odd question. I’m a tailor because fashion is my passion. I always assumed shipwrights enjoyed crafting spacecraft and weaponsmiths felt strongly about powerful weapons. I guess it’s not always that way.
Which profession is ‘best’?
First, I have to wonder why they think I’d remain a tailor if I didn’t personally feel it was ‘best’. Then to answer their question I have to calculate what ’best’ means to them. Turns out for some it’s how many credits they can bring in and for others it’s how easy it is to master.
I suppose I can understand considering the potential profits. We all need to make a living. But to be honest, if money were my only consideration, I wouldn’t be a tailor. I make enough to take care of myself but I’m not rich.
I’ve only ever been a tailor and I went about mastering it the long way so I’m in no position to offer advice about the easiest profession to master. In general, sewing isn’t difficult and I’m able to craft high quality goods from even the most mediocre materials so I guess in that respect, tailoring is ‘easy’. But like any trader profession, you still need time to the learn the ins and outs of your particular craft. You need to accumulate experience, factories, resources, schematics, vendors and a customer base. There’s no magic formula for any of it. There’s many paths to being happy and successful in a particular trade.
I’ve agreed to mentor and help some wannabe traders. But I think the most valuable advice I can give is to follow your heart and make your own path to success. That’s what makes a trade (and trader) the ‘best’.
I recently re-evaluated my property holdings and determined it was time to let go of a few things. A failed bed and breakfast from Lake Retreat was transferred to Jamaica for her to use as a home base for her business. I cut back on the number of factories I own and decided to rent my shop space in Lake Retreat rather than own that as well.
In the end, the shuffling I did left me with enough extra to purchase a home. Not just a house but a real home.
I’m not saying that the house Bermuda and I set up in Bestine isn’t still near and dear to my heart. It is and I would never part with it. But it’s not somewhere I live. It’s far from where most of my business is done and the small house can’t accommodate much more than some memorabilia from our early days together.
It seems wierd that it’s taken me this long to set up a home for myself. After Bermuda left I threw myself into my business and what I did with my properties reflects that. The only time I tried to set up a place for myself was the last time I joined a guild. The house was torn down when I left that guild a short time later.
Thankfully, advancements in moving technology have made deconstruction unnecessary. The freedom to put effort into my decorating without fear of moving it all was wonderful. And so decorate I did!
Even in my ‘home’ I couldn’t resist setting up an office and space to do private fittings for family and close friends.
But the house is really just a place for me to relax and persue some non-tailoring hobbies such as bio-engineering…
or cooking in the small kitchen….
For now my home is in Journey’s End. I’m still filling in as Mayor until things are wrapped up and our group is officially dissolved. But I look forward to finding a new spot to, hopefully, permanently place my first real home.
