“Cor, my boy, if you feel scared to the point where your stomach is playing tricks on you, you’ve just began to even the odds.”
On a day like today, I’m reminded of the above quote. It was spoken by my great-grandfather, to my grandfather. His father was a well-known big game hunter, who was often commissioned by local government authorities, in Indonesia, to track and kill rogue animals; mad elephants that terrorized villages, wild boars, tigers, etc.
While I have strong feelings about the ethics of his bounty hunting, there was one notable habit he practiced; hunting with only one bullet. This practice was to ‘level the odds’ against man and beast. This habit of his didn’t always end well. On one trip, he miscalculated a shot to the heart of a wild boar and lost a large gash of his leg from the vicious tusks of the beast, as it charged him with its dying breath.
Coming from such a colorful family tree, it doesn’t surprise me that my life has been far from conventional. I’ve lived in beautiful cities all over the united states, worked in a plethora of industries, and have made the most beautiful friendships along the way.
2018 brought a lot of changes. Looking back, I’d rather not have a repeat of the year. However, it was full of hard-earned lessons that resulted in recognizable personal transformation.
As a writer, I sometimes struggle to express my experiences through words. Words are wonderful for telling a story; yet, they lack a visual expression that allows the reader/viewer to be transported to a new dimension of the experience. The result is a feeling of creative constipation; being unable to express something you feel needs to be released.
In November, I found an answer to this pent-up creative energy; painting. The month also carried the forfeiture of my beloved job. Exchanging a laptop for a paintbrush has been one of the most wonderful things to have happened to me in 2018. Thus, I can’t really complain too much about getting canned. Aside from a bruised ego, I’m thankful to be back in the life of an entrepreneur.
An entrepreneur is little more than somebody who likes to experiment. They’re a creative, capable of taking a concept from fleeting idea to execution. In my early years, I spent a lot of time chasing down too many ideas, or taking projects that hadn’t thoroughly been thought through. The result was a lot of heartache and financial difficulty.
However, things changed in my late 20’s. I found the type of financial success I had been chasing, and enjoyed the lifestyle that came with a fatter paycheck. Beautiful apartments, fine dining, and rapturous entertainment. The years were fruitful – and fun.
Throughout the fun, I felt a strong void in my heart. Some might call it a god-shaped hole. I simply identified it as the feeling of being astray from my true nature. So, I followed the pain and began to understand the reason it was there. I didn’t feel like me, while employed, and missed the freedom to pursue new ideas.
As 2019 rolls ahead, I’m very excited to see what’s around the corner. There are a lot of significant changes ahead, and I’ve never felt more equipped to handle them with grace and elegance.
L’chaim.
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