[986] Check Please

This is going to be a weird thing that starts out wrong.

I might be afraid of “success.” I don’t even really know what that means. But, as I’m sitting here putting together a spreadsheet and making some calls to doctor’s offices, I’m getting the same tingly feeling of nervous or anxious excitement that I do when “normal work” tasks call upon me at hours I don’t want to do them.

One of the things I remember from attempting to start the coffee shop was spending two full days on the phone cold-calling people trying to get the kiosk built. I didn’t have the language. I didn’t have the money. I just called and called and called, and pieced together what I needed before finding a little shop in an Indianapolis suburb who worked with me to get it together. I’ve cold-called 2 people, today, in service to the counseling business. When I worked for The Garden Tower project, I called like 300 places to see about getting the vertical garden stocked or marketed with them.

Maybe it’s that it’s different realms? What are the stakes with coffee or gardening supplies? It’s not people’s lives. You can be shitty at either and it’s not going to ruin your professional reputation or get you blacklisted. But, I’m not a shitty counselor, nor is Hussain, and we have organizations much larger than us happy to place us under their liability and obligations regularly.

Maybe I just find it distasteful the amount of potential money? I was fantasizing the other day of having too many funds, and keeping it trapped behind a wall that would simulate me having more restraint. Can it really be true that all I have to do is have some conversations with some doctors or offices, and then the patient tap turns on, and then we get money, and all of a sudden, what? A whole new world of work and obligations opens up, but the fundamental problem gets solved.

What then? Identity crisis? I’m always the one fighting for something, complaining about the littlest details. What happens when I get what I want? I want more. I get demanding and judgmental. You couldn’t do it like me? You couldn’t try? You couldn’t join and help? Am I worried that steps in service to my success will fundamentally morph my personality?

I find so many rich people insufferable. I find the entitlement and ease superficial. I don’t want to be that. I want to be Jimmy Carter swinging a hammer. It doesn’t mean I can’t do or be that, but if I succeed, the only obligation, like all my obligations, will be coming from me and what I deem worth my time or energy. I could hire the people to make the cold calls. I could outsource the polite engagement and grunt tasks.

And, almost worse, I just need one person. I need one doctor who’s willing to take a chance on us or who’s greedy. I need one stream to use the exact skills I’m practicing daily in conjunction with. Maybe I’m worried about having to “practically” play that pageantry game. I can be a sociopath when I need to. I can talk you up and down about how I’m sooooo into harm reduction and give you creditable attestations of my morality or values. Am I worried that will get out of hand?

I’ve said it before, if I have millions right now, I’d probably still be alone. So what am I after in more money, insurance, free time, or creative flexibility? I don’t even want to “save the world,” so to speak, anymore, as much as I still want to get a handle on the practical landscape of human decision making and power dynamics. What do I really get if it’s time unbound to no, or not-yet conceived, ends?

I had a significantly different driving animus when I was younger. It was pride and showing off. It was a different kind of pride than the accomplishment of getting something difficult done. It was more “I’m the type of person that does things like this, and you’re down there.” I’m not entirely not that person today, but it’s not the same kind of gratifying. Now, I want “meaning.” I want my feelings to inform, not “passionately” dictate. Which is why I can experience the same-old anxieties, and they don’t stop me from entering the “normal” world nor working to “do my own thing,” but there are a lot more checks on my behavior.

I’m going to keep calling doctors. I’m going to keep rehearsing the script and reaching out. I’m going to keep working this job. I’m going to sit with the discomfort of acquiring more and more money, connections, and obligations. I think I’ve taken a fairly prolonged “down” period when I sat with my toys and books and “regular” pace of life, and now realizing the utility or comfort of that, it feels wrong to provoke the kind of mania I associate with entrepreneurship. I’m not scared of doing a bad job. I’m not lying to anyone about my motivation or perspective. It’s just a simple fact that each person you tap for introduction into your madness or controlled chaos begets more madness and chaos to control.

I know I’m not just going to get fat and go to sleep when I have more resources. The “laziness” or “afraid check” on my trajectory are unduly harsh descriptors of me otherwise trying to pay attention to the mitigating circumstances of my day-to-day perspective. I really think I’m just worried about being an even bigger obnoxious dick. Like, how many more things would I need to go right or as I knew they could for me to garner the following and respect? How do I not lord that shit over people in passive or aggressive ways? I don’t want to feel that good. I don’t think I have the self-control not to sound like an entitled conservative or old-money trust fund child who thinks they did everything themselves.

I think part of me is also suspicious that it will all be as free and clear as I’m imagining. There’s gonna be details and fuck ups and what is someone sues? The “auto-pilot” or “passive” income is often ill-conceived for all of the work and years and infrastructure in place to remove you from calls all day and night. Do I have the bandwidth and desire for all that right now? With another job? With any amount of debt? With 28 more concerts to see this year? Am I not pretty good or comfortable and “productive enough,” as though this is the most meaningful metric to measure along?

The thing I really want to fix, how I obligate my time, is certainly under attack with either route. I was “happy” to give myself to the projects in the past because I was under the spell that the effort I was exerting would inevitably lead to success. I’m no longer under that illusion. I’m almost 34 and not retired living in a shed. My toys mean debt. My time, no matter what, will be spent  in service to things I don’t or barely respect and believe in. Do I want something different? Do I need to phrase it in a new way? Do I want to maintain some sense of autonomy regardless of how, why, or what I’m working on? Do I need to be more exacting on the nature of what I want my “freedom” to look like?

I just don’t want to blindly barrel forward. I see how that instantiates bad habits in companies as they get bigger. I see how desperate they are to keep up the pageantry and goodwill as the details get poo-pooed and the claws come for those voicing them. I can control the pace of growth, I think. I just need the water source. I can keep talking about my anxiety or changes to my personality, and none of you will be bothered to speak up or give a fuck anyway lol.

My only group for the day is at 3:30. Then I’m off to another concert. I’ve slept in, written this, eaten a delicious fillet and potato, and save a difficult spot on my back I’ve aggravated from sleeping in a chair, the only thing that could make my life rosier is regular engagement with people on the same vibe. I’m getting after the bigger and better and more rounded, not precisely alone, but at the pace of someone who still needs to work a regular job and whose partners’ obligations are considerably more demanding or whose skills and interests lie elsewhere.

I need to keep the goal modest. Make a few calls. Leave a few messages. Otherwise, don’t get fired or quit your job too soon. Don’t assume you’ll be particularly good or bad, personality wise or in what you accomplish, as you keep slogging through creating another business. The world and vast majority of people you’re talking at don’t give a fuck about you. Just do whatever you want and trust that what you want isn’t really that fucked up or immodest with regard to what you’re capable of or done in the past. Writing will keep you from getting belligerent.