its the american dream to work for yourself... own your own business... be your own boss... get some boots and equip them with straps and then pull yourself up by those boot straps, am i right?
as that seems to be the case, we are certainly living the dream.
right now the part of that dream we are living is the push, push, push of heaving our dream out into the spotlight and inviting the world in to enjoy it with us.
in a weird way, our dream is to build a little place that will be the house of many dreams. a dream generator, if you will. a goal factory. a reaching for the stars sweat shop.
our dream only exists if many many other people jump on the wagon with us and come along for the ride. we need you... we want you... we want to teach you and shove you out into the spotlight and invite others to take pleasure in your brilliance. we want to entertain you. more than anything we want to make you laugh and we want you to bring your friends so that you can all laugh together and then they can bring their friends and some people will invite their in laws, eventually cousins will get involved and strangers will be there as well and we will all just be one big happy laughing conglomeration of merry dream-come-truers.
thats around the corner.
and, believe me, i am hauling and shoving and hurling our little parcel of rainbows and unicorn dreams up that hill and around that corner.
what they dont tell you is that working for yourself is really hard.
maybe they do tell you that. it could be the reason that more people dont do it. if anyone ever told me that livin the dream and owning your own business was hard then i wasnt listening at the time. its possible. i do that alot.
when you work for someone else, when you're slaving away at that nine-to-fiver, it sometimes feels like all you are doing is spinning the wheels, contributing your piece of a larger puzzle that somehow fits into furthering someone else's goals.
you serve a meaningful purpose, sure. and you work hard for the money (so hard for it honey)... but its possible that populating spreadsheets isnt really your passion.
still. when the five rolls around you can walk out the door. you can shut down the computer and leave the spreadsheets behind. you can turn your attentions to more leisurely pursuits, relax, let your hair down.
in corporate america, you can always shake your head at the foolishness of management. you can even phone it in, do just enough to squeek by and still walk away with the same paycheck. you can take a vacation. you can call in sick.
when you work for yourself there are no business hours. its true, i spend plenty of hours working in my pajama pants. but, the reason for it is that i am usually still working at midnight and later. at five i continue working. at nine i am still working. if i phone it in or call out sick... its me that answers that call. and i know when i am faking.
i am never not working. at the movies, at the mall, in the shower... im still working. my work is as ready for me on saturday night as it was on monday morning.
this, what im doing right now... blogging... this is me taking a break. and still, in my head all i hear is NCT NCT NCT NCT NCT. my heart beats NCT. my eyes blink NCT. i dream NCT. or...to be honest, i dream of paul rudd and in my dream he is talking about NCT.
it probably sounds like bellyaching. believe me, i sometimes dearly wish i could take a personal day... theres no personal day off from my own brain. and my brain speaks NCT.
however, i would like it very much if you would not get me wrong. i may be complaining... but thats what i do. i complain. i work hard and in my spare time i complain.
i love what i do. and i am grateful to have the opportunity to go blind and give myself carpal tunnel syndrome in the cause of doing what i love the most. with the people i love the most.
i am aware that i really cant ask for more than that.
but, for comedy's sake... the parts when i go on and on about sunshine, lollipops and rainbows arent nearly as interesting as the parts where i tell you i almost got run off the road by a woman who wanted to ask me about the theatre and i swerved away happy to be unscathed but happier that my NCT car magnet was getting some hits. nearly literal hits.
as tom hanks so wisely said to gina davis all those years ago in a little picture called 'a league of their own'...
'its supposed to be hard. if it wasnt, everyone would do it. the hard is what makes it great.'
and, as steve carell so brilliantly added...
"thats what she said"
-nct
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