I've had to make some decisions lately that normally would've shattered me. I always have little regrets of what would've been every time I make decisions. I let my brain sit on these a little too long - but I feel what I feel - and I can't deny my heart. Choosing a job that offered security for me and my family or hold fast to my potential? I'm listening to Al Green over the sound of my A/C blowing way too loud. I'd fix it if it wasn't a rental. I made a decision to not have a boss. To not bend to a bunch of arbitrary rules. I have the plan, I have something brewing. I'm building momentum and I can't just stop. I complain all the time about how I don't have a job, it's not entirely true. I own a small business, basically just me trying to navigate how the hell it's supposed to work for roughly 5 years now. Clumsily, with no grace, I have been slowly building something, a brand attached to me. Something I can always work on. It's just me vs the world bidding work and doing odd jobs. It started as just a side hustle when I worked in the union. Having an LLC shields my family a little better from any legal trouble I could run into. I was a plumber by trade so plumbing was my business.
I didn't know what I was doing but I knew a lot of shit. I knew a lot of pieces to a bigger puzzle and I couldn't put it all together. My experience in the union taught me a lot; how to do big commercial projects, jobsite etiquette, hierarchy of priorities & trades, how to read a spec-sheet and a vague understanding of reading a blueprint (plans, details, drawings, etc). My experience in the union also taught me how a lot of noble causes and noble words are very attractive to someone like me who didn't know how to not trust someone. I came from the military where we all had each others back, I could relax a lot better knowing that the person talking shit with me in whatever hole we crawled into was going to be with me when we had to crawl out. I was accustomed to wild personalities, but there was still a tinge in the air that we were all there for the same reason at the end of the day. There was still comradery, there was still a brotherhood. A shared struggle, a shared pain. I had no reason to distrust anyone, and that made me blind to the underbelly of the real world, outside of our indoctrinated routines and the Reveille going off like a church bell - day in and day out. The real world has no real fidelity, no allegiances, no hierarchy, no standard. Everyone can go their own way, changing their convictions and their consequences at a whim. It is a beautiful and a terrifying thing to experience for the first time in your late 20's.
I'm trailing off again. Freedom & Security! That's why I wrote it down. You can have freedom if you sacrifice security, vice-versa. This applies only to poorest of us, as enough money can grant both up to an extent. I feel like having enough money tied up in your business will eventually tie you tighter and tighter together with politicians and the government that you essentially min-max into security. That's besides the point, the point is that I've been attempting to choose freedom for a long time, I've been diving in and handling everything from the sales, to cold-calling contractors, to scrolling FaceBook for leads, to handling the accounting, the website, the website's SEO, domain, email pipelines, fucking WordPress, payroll, marketing, and then actually going out to the jobsite and doing the work myself.
Oh woah is me!
I've chosen this path, I'm just providing insight on some of the frustrations. Some oversights in a mans mind who had no idea what he was getting into. No idea the stress and the breaking of his spirit and ego. He would have to endure, grow from his mistakes and decide when to take a loss. When to realize that you have exhausted this approach and need to turn around. Sometimes you've already come so far, your soles blistered and your head pounding from the heat, your calluses ripped away and miles yet behind you. This is the decision you have made, you must suffer the course. But eventually - eventually with enough trial and error you will find a stream outside of this dust bowl leading to a river, leading to an ocean.