Have you ever experienced coming up with a great idea, gone to tell loved ones, friends or family about it only to hear, “You can’t do that!?” These people are well-meaning, look at the practical side of life, and hold dearly to security. And after all, your great idea would come with inherent risks.
Many great ideas, when carried out, require steps that go outside of the realms of the ordinary. Considered “different” to ordinary people, those who act upon their dreams take steps they see as inconvenient; uncomfortable; out-of-reach; or unnatural. To those who live their lives happily risk-free, security-bound, such notions can be perceived as outlandish; ridiculous; and downright threatening.
Thus nay saying results when you disclose your great ideas. When I speak of a great idea, I don’t mean that ingenious idea that led to the quick repair something that was broken or finding the cause of a leaking roof. I’m referring to the brainstorming mind that comes up with big idea – starting a corporation and dropping out of the employment world; an invention of something unheard of before; or the suspected presence of some great fortune to be had only through some calculated risk.
Sometime around the age of seven I had read the famous story, Jack and the Beanstalk. I became so fascinated with the story it I “walked and talked” it everywhere I went. On a mid-summer day I had visited the vegetable garden of a neighbor to discover large plants with sturdy-looking stalks. They towered way over my head. I ran home to my mother who was in the kitchen and beamed that I had seen some beanstalks growing!
These were actually sunflower plants that had not yet blossomed. My brother, in dismay, uttered: “Oh you and your beanstalks!” While my brothers and sisters spent their time watchng the black-and-white television in the living room, I spent my time collecting rocks and minerals and learning about geology. “Oh you and your rocks!” My real education did not come from schools.
Throughout the 1970s the counter culture movement replaced the fairy tale. It was more real, replacing the fairy tale, yet was colorful; vibrant; and definately out-of-the-ordinary. To me, it was fascinating for such a thing to exist in the drab world of the “regular” life everybody else around me was living. I adhered to the movement long after it died out. I learned a lot about life most people didn’t care about. It left its mark in my life and served its purpose. Eventually it gave way to my exposure entrepreneurship.
Have I stopped living Jack and the Beanstalk? Recently I contemplated about my direction in life as it has always gone in some other direction than the rest of the herd. I’ve seen a lot of opposition and had been pulled aside by many well-meaning souls who counseled me to put away childish dreams and get focused on my job (or get out there and pound that pavement to get one.) I must put the childish things in their proper perspective and act like a man.
Many thought there was something very wrong with me. There are those who still do. I didn’t do very well socializing, grew to hate small talk, big talk, and just plain mediocre talk. I had not realized my potential until after a long while living around people who offered no support for what I have come to believe in life.
The real issues in my life came from the bombardment of criticism that I didn’t like work, was stubborn, childish, even downright devious. Eventually this did break my spirit and I reluctantly took my place in the turning of the wheels.
I had to. The day the Internet caused my eyes to be opened had not yet happened. So I tore myself out of my home every day…Kachunk! Kachunk! Kachunk! Again…and again…and again. I did it in the same quiet desperation everybody else around me was doing it. Today I still do it but no longer in quiet desperation! For the day came when I met entrepreneurs on the Internet and caused me to rediscover my early passions in life. Yes, I still am employed but I don’t hate work. They’re not one in the same.
I reflect upon that old fairy tale, and as I get older, can see how I can relate to Jack. Any of his peers back then knew to get down and put their nose to the grindstone to help their families buy bread and keep the cow fed so she would keep giving milk. However Jack did not like doing grunt work, making someone else rich. Like Jack, I have climbed that beanstalk and found the treasure above the clouds in the castle. I have not yet seized the treasures but I’m now mustering myself.
How many times have you been “punished” for what you thought was a great idea? Jack traded his mother’s only possession – a lean cow for a bunch of multicolored beans from a total stranger. Being branded a “foolish, foolish boy” Jack was sent to bed with no supper and his mother angrily threw the beans out the window.
You know the rest of the story…
We all know “Jacks” who lived their lives in times past. Guglielmo Marconi is best known for the invention of radio we now take for granted. What we may not know about him was that he was thrown into an asylum for believing he could send signals through the air!
Many of you know there’s got to be more to life than to be a wage slave, grind your life away to get the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table.
But you get the picture. There’s a price to be paid when you dare to take the least traveled road in life, one which most members of the masses will not take. Those who will walk where others will not go and live the life others will not are more likely to get to where others can’t. Those who insist on living the “default” life are not likely to find the giant’s castle where can be found the money bags, hen which lays the golden eggs, and the enchanted harp.
Despite the wake of ridicule and admonishment to take your head out of the clouds, I challenge you to find your passions and dreams, visualize them and bring them into fruition. For in so doing you will find the life you have dreamed about and learn the real meaning of freedom.
Welcome to my blog and hope you find it to be inspiring as well as stimulating to you to find yourself and learn of your power within.
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