Strolling through the town block party yesterday, I saw the sign: Pluck a Duck for $1! Perhaps you remember this game from your childhood carnivals? You pick a duck, and if you choose one with a star painted onto its underbelly you get a prize.

Feel like you’re still playing this game as an adult? As a freelancer, I feel like I spend a good amount of my time playing the grownup version of Pluck a Duck.

Clients: They’re not always as they first seem. The mild-mannered, appreciative ones morph into needy, shameless 3am-callers who can’t make up their minds but expect you to read them.

Projects: They seem simple enough, until you get started. Then your expert source bails, your main contact doesn’t respond to your questions, and your deposit check bounces.

Niches: Yours seems fine, until everyone else starts doing it. Or maybe no one else is doing it, and you realize there’s probably a good reason for that. No one cares. No one reads your blog. Not even you.

Any of the above sound familiar?

Life is a game of wet rubber ducks, floating around in the town fountain atop all the shiny pennies fools threw in to make their wishes.

Freelancing is a game of Pick the Winner. You can have the fancy degrees, the sharpest skills, the winning marketing tactics. You can rise from bed each morning chanting mantras of success and riches. But you still have to put your shoes on and get out there and play the game. If you pick a loser, you can always play again.

I had to lose a lot of games before I ever finally won one, and I still pick bad ducks from time to time. How about you?