[422] Try Try Again

Be careful who your friends are.

I want you to take away feelings of sadness more than anger. I feel I should state that up front because I don't know yet if I'll manage to sound like anything but angry.

“That's life.”

Surely we're all aware of what it means to have an idea conditioned. You'll learn what it means to be an “adult.” The closest representation I have is working yourself to exhaustion, making sure you have the kind of staples of the picturesque Edward Bernay's dream world. House, spouse, and the finest designer kitchenware. The American Dream is so well understood and reinforced, you can find remote tribes in countries you can't pronounce who will claim they want part of it if not to also go to Disney World.

I suppose being such a heavy consumer of media, I'll claim to be “more aware” of the kind of impact ideas seem to have on the world. For even when we have entire industries and disciplines dedicated to “impression management” we can find ourselves believing and behaving much differently had we never engaged with their model or specific framing of an idea.

So let's talk about goals. I have big ones. They include being able to buy a bad ass artsy personally designed house meant for entertaining, whatever the latest Tesla is out at the time, and any number of things you might wan to call fun that comes with having money. But there's a problem with having this goal. It is extremely similar to the well-wishing and hopeful story we tell ourselves in America about our potential. If we work hard enough or are really passionate or some other sentiment meant to over placate the details, things are just supposed to sort of fall into place.

To me, this kind of goal, like all goals, can be approached in a pragmatic way that has nothing to do with the kind of sentiment carried by “I wish I could just win the lottery!” I draw distinctions between wishes and dreams, and a list of things I haven't done yet in service to getting what I want. I'm also under no illusions about my capacity to focus and get something done. It's really hard to talk “business” with people who have a lot of ideas about business and no desire to start or operate one. Yet, to go from having nothing to starting one, in 3 months, and manage to run it for 6 months without going into debt, is extremely harder than but what a handful of people seem to give me and Sam credit for.

But even that's not the point. The point is the climate you're operating under. Say I heavily disagree with one or most of your choices. 99 times out of a 100 I'll write about “a friend” or “a situation” and how I've been put off. Rarely, if ever, do I go out of my way to dismiss how you're conducting your life or what you think you'll achieve in the future. Immediately you may say “didn't you just write a blog saying 'fuck your god?' Yes, but I know about the god conversation in a way I can't discuss your particular discipline, didn't make it personal, and didn't do so “out of hand” or “naturally.” My views on religious positions and ideas came out of years of studying and discussing.

I'm lucky I'm not an impressionable child. When I hear someone say, so convinced and so disparagingly “you know that's not going to happen, right?” about some statement I make about the future I envision, I want to say “who hurt you?” I'm well worn by my lower middle class background. I know explicitly how much it costs in insurance or “oh shit money” to run even the most modest of businesses. And I don't think my circumstances will change without persistently applying my knowledge and mindset.

So what is that mindset? Succinctly, it's the squeaky wheel. Questions never end, and as long as you have them, you have the ability to open doors to potential. Leaving aside the basic math required to buy things necessary to look like a business, most of how you get anywhere in life is through connections. I've never grown up with the “rich friend” who's family has started several businesses and has money in a hundred different things. I've also never went on the prowl for one. Business can be as much about grassroots door knocking as it can be what you glean from business school. I've already lived through making the money I want with the business things I've done. It's not a “theory” what my potential earnings are when I get the financial legs under what I've already created.

My mindset involves risk mitigation. I don't just think I'm going to create some “awesome” thing that takes over like Starbucks. I think we live in an era where every state hasn't legalized pot yet. What would a few thousand dollars invested in the right levels of that mean? Not every dispensary is going to turn into the Apple of weed, but that's a dumb way to approach investment. I want my money in stages, in parts, and from many “smaller risks.” My coffee van isn't on the beat selling right now. But, I own the van and everything in it, debt averted. Whatever further inherent risk, I have something that “needs” an insurance payment to start seeking business again, and that's only if I want to keep playing by the rules. It's math, not magic. And the math for poor people with dreams involves a lot of trying, “failing,” and sitting around while accumulating until you can try again. It's going from poor to “anything” that's the hard part; then you duplicate.

Admittedly, you have to be a certain kind of person to pursue things like this. I didn't believe college meant dick with everything I was reading about college not meaning dick to so many people who had completed it before I did. That is, I didn't care to be a doctor. I don't believe in adopting debt or leveraging, even if that's how 98% of businesses may operate in their starting years. I've read enough to know that's not the only way or necessarily wise, particularly when you don't have unlimited funds to prop you up and explain a rosier picture than you're due. I recognize the different, and significantly, harder in some ways, circumstances we live in today for me to get what I want.

And while I'm not necessarily looking for encouragement, I don't respect or understand going out of your way to disparage me. It suggests you've done things like I have and attempted to explain something to me that I simply refuse to hear. It suggests you're living an idealized version of your life having pursued a job within in your major or after incurring the debt in order to continue school. It suggests that I'm first speaking out of my hopeless dreamer ass and don't actively pursue and put money where my mouth is. I don't find this acceptable behavior as a general person might engage with a stranger, let alone friendly or attempting understanding.

It's the snapshot problem. You experience your life every moment of every day and yet you'll take a snapshot or a comment out of someone else's and use it to mold their being into something you can manage or judge. I won't willingly play the scapegoat for someone else's unresolved feelings concerning their own life. It's not wise and it's not fair.