Forget the dream of earning easy money online and roll up your sleeves. Avoid the misconceptions and face reality. Earn.

1. You are going to learn a trick that would provide you with income forever.
2. You are going to become rich in a matter of weeks or months.
3. There is a formula.
4. The Internet has profound unwritten rules that somebody fully understands.
5. The people that "get it" might be willing to teach you.
6. You will never need to work again.

Write this statements on a piece of paper, look at it carefully and then put it on the wall or throw the wretched bastard away. Point being avoid any misconceptions by trying to forget everything you know and approaching the matter with a blank open mind.

There are literary billions of dollars made online every day. Money is constantly changing hands and someone is always making a profit. Every minute there is somebody buying something through an affiliate, clicking on an ad, gambling their money away, paying to consume content (which is usually a sophisticated way to say watching porn), paying for a service, getting their credit card information stolen or falling for a scam. The money are flowing through the system and there are countless nodes in the network taking a percentage. Some make more, some make less, but they are all making at least a comfortable living while a lot of us are sitting on the sidelines, dreaming to experience that magical moment when we will become one of them, of course, overnight. But it doesn't work like that. Only scams work like that.

A lot of us see the Internet as this magical land of unlimited possibilities and opportunities, which is mostly true. For many of us it's this scary place for business that we personally could not really understand. It's the Wild Wild Web and only true heroes or villains could get on their horses, load their guns and start robbing the diligence every day. We all feel it's some kind of a magical land and we expect that miracles are the way it works, that miracles are its underlying principle of operation if you will. We believe this because most of us are afraid to dive in and the reality is drowned in a buzzing sea of myths and scams trying to look legit.

We've all seen the ads and we've all been tempted by the promise. A guy lying on the beach with a laptop in his lap, a Mojito in his hand, and a smile on his face. Welcome to the dream of earning a fortune with a few easy clicks. And it always comes with the same tired old diamond of a cliche - "That could be you." Yeah, that could be you, but not now and not because you decided to bite the bait attached to the hook by the next run-at-the-mill scam artist. Because this promise is rarely anything more than a scam. It's all about paying that one dollar this month, so you would forget to cancel the recurring 97$ per month afterwards. Easy money taken from lazy people.

If you want to start making money online you have to forget that mindset. Nobody is going to give you the formula on a silver platter, no matter the price you pay and after all, why would they? This picture is at the core of the myth and this picture is what you need to delete from you head. There is no easy money waiting for you offline and there is no easy money waiting for you online either. It looks like some people got it the easy way, but in reality, there are countless hours of labor and thinking that these people have put into their venture and now they are reaping the benefits of their efforts, skills and ingenuity. Even the scammers didn't reach the point of reaching you with their scam overnight and need to put some work into the bells and wistles making the bear trap work. And if there is someone out there who made a fortune without putting in the work, you simply cannot count on the idea that you are going to be like them. This is the exception that confirms the rule. Your chances for that are miserably miniscule and it's time to accept it.

No, you should not. It's a great idea and a great route to go down to. You just need to get rid of the misconceptions in your head, lower your expectations, roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. As I we mentioned already, there are billions to be made online and there is nothing that could stop you from becoming one of the money-making nodes in this global money-making network. But this is a right you need to earn.

"Why are there so many people that fail while others are making a fortune?" you ask? Well, there are two main categories of people who don't get it: people who are too lazy to deserve it and people with unreasonable expectations that give up before they have deserved it.

Making a living online should be viewed as any business in the real world. It is something that requires you to invest a lot of time, effort and possibly money. You need to be determined and unrelenting. Success doesn't come overnight, it is something that needs to be fueled by your blood, sweat and tears - and lots of it. There are many things to learn about the business and many approaches to try. Some will give no results, some will give small results and some will be an epic failure. What you need to do in the beginning is gather as much real information and experience. You need to keep trying until you find a niche that allows you enough profit to support yourself. And don't hope that this niche will stay yours forever. This is a very volatile market and you need to constantly adopt and refine your methods. But with time, it should get easier and easier.

In order not to be without any income while you are working on your bigger schemes, you can join HubPages and start earning little by little on the hubs (articles) you write.

You can also join WebAnsers and start earning little by little by answering questions in topics you are knowledgable about

Of course, with all of these options you cannot escape the fact that your earnings will increase after you've been active for some time, especially here on HubPages. But also don't forget that the easiest is rarely the best.

Let me tell you a story. I have a very good friend who supports himself with online activity and his monthly profits are usually in the thousands. He's been at it for about two years and I secretly envy him for making a living working when he wants, from where he wants and not having to deal with bosses. To put it simply, he is not a millionaire yet, but he's living the dream. So can I go to him and ask him his secret? Yes, but nothing he would tell me would help me start turning up the same profit today. Profit simply doesn't usually work that way. It's all about working and developing your own project to the point of profitability. He is in this situation, because he fought for his independence day in and day out until he succeeded. He was his own boss and he worked himself as hard as possible with unrelenting persistence. Let me give you a reference frame - it took him one whole year to make his first $6 online and they didn't even cover a small part of the money he had invested. Most of us would have given up way earlier, so he has deserved his success and has every right to enjoy the benefits he has created for himself. And he didn't do it with the get-rich-quick schemes he tried. He did it with good old-fashioned effort, consistency and determination. You might be smarter than he is, you might have better ideas than has, you might think that you should be in his place and deserve it more than he does and that God didn't put you on this planet to be pushed around by your idiot boss, but this claims have no value until you prove them with your actions.

So if you want to be in that situation one day, you need to understand that it will not happen overnight and it will not come to you for free. Forget the myth of easy money and prepare to start digging till your hands are sore. You need to give up your job security and you need to start gaining experience today. In the beginning you will fail, but you simply cannot fail forever. Sooner or later one of your projects will become a success. But you need to be ready to put your true 100% in it until you earn your right to succeed. The only way you could fail in the long run is by giving up before the time to reap the results of your efforts comes.

So let me state the point I'm trying to make as clearly as possible and let this be your formula for success...

You'll get it when you deserve to. It's that simple.

P.S.: Check out my blog at www.flawedgadgets.com!