Starting A Business was easy, but by the end of 2008 it was gone, all of it, and then some. I had made a tidy profit from the sale of a rental house in late 2006 and within 2 years all of it was lost.
Had I been foolish? Maybe
Had I practiced poor financial management? Yes, I’d say so.
Do I regret it? Not one bit.
I made a complete mess of my business but I wouldn’t be where I am now if I had not had the experiences I had during that difficult period. That difficult period lasted about 3 to 4 years. It was a time where everything I touched in my professional life turned to crap.
In contrast other things were going great, like my family. Myself and my wife were having children and making a home, and I can safely say they are the most remarkable thing in my life right now. At that time I was undergoing a valuable lesson about finding happiness and what happiness meant.
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger”. – Friedrich Nietzsche
An Opportunity to Grow
Life is a weird and funny thing don’t you think?. We live here on this ball of rock hurtling through infinite space, and we have these experiences good and bad. Then we die. It’s totally crazy when you consider the big picture.
Inevitably we are brought to the question of; Why bother?
Well, I don’t know for sure. Sometimes I think I know but really I don’t. I’m like everyone else on this planet trying to find themselves and a greater meaning to life. Happiness though, is the gold, it’s what we are all after, it’s our natural state.
One thing I do know for sure is that I Am, I exist, and through the difficult times I understand more of what I Am. I become stronger. We are constantly presented throughout our lives with opportunities to become more, to advance, to grow.
Starting A Business
It has been my observation in my time here, that the world functions primarily via the need and want to be happy. Regardless of the apparent manifestations in the world. The primary driving force above all else is for the individual to be happy.
Starting a business is born from the desire to make things better, for ourselves and for others. And when we are genuinely concerned for the quality of work we do and the service we can bring to others then we can simply not go wrong.
Lessons must be learned, so no matter what the short-term results happen to be, I believe that starting a business for all the right reasons can not but bring about great results eventually.
Happiness is what we are after, in what ever form it happens to arrive. When people like you who drive forward out of the desire to produce something great then everyone benefits eventually. Only when money becomes the driving force, do things turn sour.
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature”. – Marcus Aurelius
Life Is Short
My experiences in starting a business, and failing, have been transformative. It has been very difficult, emotional and stressful but it has shown me that I have much more to give. It has shown me that everybody here has an infinite nature to produce something great if they only persist.
Life is in and out in the blink of an eye. One minute you’re here, the next you’re gone, so to me it has become important to make my existence count. I am not here to simply make up the numbers and neither are you.
All of this is great, and can be powerful to contemplate, but like you I have those days where I wonder what I’m doing and if I’ve completely lost it mentally. I have those times when things get on top of me and I fall out of alignment.
The good news is that these times of inner disturbance become less and less. It has been my experience that the more we consciously bring into our lives, time for introspection and self-analysis, the happier we become. Time for peace and quiet, time under the bridge.
Please don’t misunderstand this as a time for self-criticism, on the contrary, it is a time for self allowance, to be just yourself with no objectification or need to fulfill any preconceived idea of who you should be.
The Person You Should Be
In knowing that from where you are, you are exactly where you need to be, there comes a peace. When we drop the need to be somewhere or fulfill some commitment to others we allow ourselves space to be ourselves. For me personally I have found great freedom in dropping the need to do things for other people.
You see I held a belief that I would be seen in their eyes as less a person, as less than I should be if I didn’t fulfill their needs. I had built up in my mind an idea of who I should be based on what society was telling me. I had an obligation to fulfill it.
I was fearful of losing face if I didn’t follow through. I have since found out that every bit of this is nonsense and destructive to me on every level. Now, I still hear that voice in my head saying “you’ve gotta be here, or there, or call this person or that person, and if you don’t you’ll be in trouble”, but I have found a way to ignore it.
I reckon it comes from the schooling I got, primarily from my childhood upbringing. It’s a typical “Good Citizen” mentality which the powers that be require in order to remain significant, and for us to remain exactly where we are. The day will come when new thought pushes over the cliff edge and society will change radically and forever.
“The greatest gift you can ever give another person is your own happiness.” – Abraham
Our Primary Responsibility
Our primary responsibility in this world is to find happiness for ourselves in everything we do. Now, it’s important that in this pursuit that we don’t become hypnotised by the calls of celebration from others when we do something that they approve of, because this will lead us astray.
When we become seduced by the approval of others we begin to form the view, primarily from the Ego mind, that this is where happiness lies, and no wonder. Praise makes us feel good.
But this is short lived because as soon as you do something that the others do not like they will pour criticism all over you. Long term happiness can not be found in the opinions of others. We must focus on self creation and happiness, not creation by means of conformity to the ideas of others.
Happiness is instantaneous just as soon as we see the light within ourselves, and cease seeking the light outside. When this happens we can not help but be a light unto the world, positively effecting all around us.
I provide Online Marketing & WordPress Web Development to businesses and marketing departments, helping to establish and refine their online presence.