So I've had this little niggling idea scratching at the back and inside of my brain for awhile. I can't say the idea out loud yet as it's not ready for the rigors of everyday life outside of the dark and cozy corners of my gray matter. Let's just say, since the first minute I realized the horrors of writing a dissertation are fading into blood-streaked sepia tones, I've been gearing up for a project. The problem: I didn't have anything specific in mind.
Recently, though, I've become enamored with the quiet energy of entrepreneurialism. Seems like we're in its hey day right now--everyone has a YouTube channel linked to Twitter accounts and Pinterest boards. Despite my last note, espousing the notion of unplugging, there's something new and fresh about a digital landscape that is waiting to be cultivated with anything you want to put out there that, in many ways, is fail-safe. As long as you don't mind it being captured forever by the NSA on some server somewhere, if a venture on the web fails--[delete]. And you start over.
So I've hooked in and become fascinated with some of these web-preneurs. People who have managed to figure out how to live completely fulfilling lives blogging. Ten years ago, that word didn't exist; now it's a verb and an industry.
How do I get a piece of that?!?! Sounds like the best job in the world.
Obviously, it has it's ups and downs. I just watched a YouTube video of a girl who was "hurt" by all the "mean things" internet trolls say. These first world problems make for a very, very hard life. But it feels like the energy that the pioneers had. The ether is awash in the musk of digital manifest destiny and like a bitcoin panhandler, I'm hooking up wagon to my oxen, dressing June in a sunbonnet, and setting off on a trail into the great black void.
It's like Oregon Trail but not if you see what I mean.
Anyway, I'm exciting to give this a shot:
First of all, it's a workbook. The last one of those I had was in phonics in the 3rd grade. I'm down and pumped. Second, though, it's making a plan for the next year. I feel like this will help me sleep the slumber of a person once possessed by demons that have been excised. It's a weird phantom sensation of loss after such a huge project is over and one day you face that fact that, yes, you have no plan. That's fun for weeks or months. When the time ticks into years, it's too long. I need a plan. Third, I think I'm *full* of awesome ideas and now I finally feel like it's worth gathering up my guts and taking some risks. I've felt the keen sting of significant failure enough now that I can truly appreciate the non-risk of losing nothing. There's literally no down side to doing something like this.
And finally, it's time to actualize. Every day I think more and more about how I have somehow, errantly bought in to the concept of time ticking away being a good thing...like each minute is an accomplishment I can cross off my list. That is the worst possible way to live. You cannot seize a moment from behind it. That's grasping at a moment. Seizing requires planning. And risk. And luck. And night sweats, I'm sure.
At one point in time, those things terrified me. Now...that sounds like a pretty exciting group of circumstances.
It's go time. And I'm ready for it. I do think this is going to be my very best year ever. Now I just need to make it happen.
