Dream Chasing

The last two days were pretty awesome. I was hoping this whole Booktober thing would work out pretty well, but I didn't expect this. Both Monday and Tuesday saw me sell right around 35 books. For me, that's great. I mean, it's really great, and I've been really excited about it since I woke up yesterday and saw all those sales.

 

These two days have also reinforced some perspective for me. You see, those 35 sales, sales mostly of $0.99 books, have brought me in about $30 per day. That's... not exactly living-high-on-the-hog money. These two days, two days that I'm sure are in the top ten that I've had since I started selling books, are still not where I'd like to be. And, you know what, that's fine. They give me a perfect opportunity to write about today's topic. And that's better than all the money in the world. Not really, of course, but let's run with it.

 

You've probably heard these sayings your whole life:

 

"Chase your dreams."

 

"If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life."

 

"When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, and he looks you crooked in the eye and he asks you if you paid your dues, you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what old Jack Burton always says at a time like that: 'Have you paid your dues, Jack?' "Yes sir, the check is in the mail.'"

 

Okay, so maybe that last one was just from Big Trouble in Little China (watch it if you haven't already; watch it again if you have), but the point still stands. You've heard people tell you to chase your dreams. You've heard it your whole life, and you either think it sounds great or like total hooey. Well, I'm here to tell you that it's both.

 

You can chase your dreams. You really can. I'm proof of that. But, in order to do so, you have to make sacrifices. And not just the ones you're thinking of, either. Sure, everybody knows about the money. You'll have to accept that $30 in a day is pretty doggone good when you're just starting to chase your dreams. You'll have to accept that it's still pretty good a year later. I've had to accept that. It's not been all that hard. I've always liked to say that I was blessed with cheap tastes. I don't need to be a millionaire. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I don't want to be one. It seems like a pain in the butt.

 

But it's more than just the money that you have to sacrifice when you chase your dreams. At least, it is if your dreams aren't particularly lucrative. Money, for all my hatred of it, is a pretty useful thing to have, and it's a pretty useful thing to have for a few very good reasons. I think the best way to describe what I'm saying is to talk about paths. There are many of them in life, but each one is a one-way street. Once you go down a path, you can still turn onto a new one, but you can never go back and take that one you passed right by. The sacrifices I want to talk about are like that.

 

Then again, I don't really want to talk about the sacrifices. I want to talk about the benefits. I want to talk about how freeing it is to do something you love. I want to stay positive, but let's be negative. After all, I'm all about honesty. I think.

 

You see, there's a reason I'm able to do what I do. There's a reason I don't HAVE to go out and get a job that pays better than what I scrap together from book sales and my other not-so-lucrative activities. That reason is that I have no responsibilities.

 

There were other paths along the way. Without delving into too personal an area here, let's just say that I didn't have to be single right now (I'm not being conceited or saying I had women throwing themselves at me left and right, just that I could have found someone if I had wanted to. Most people seem capable of that much, and I sincerely hope I'm not too different from most people. Then again, I suppose I could be unlovable. After all, not all my qualities are good ones. I have my flaws, I suppose. But this seems like a thought trail more fit for a diary than a blog post). Anyway, I didn't have to be childless. Many of my college friends aren't. Many of them followed their dreams and started families. Many of them have car and house payments. I don't. I'm poor. It provides a lot of flexibility.

 

You know, I read something somewhere sometime about delayed gratification. I think that's what this post is about. Admittedly, I've gone back and erased and started over and inserted new thoughts a few times already, so I've kind of lost track. But I think that's the point. What's the point? This is the point: if you want to chase your dreams, you might have to put a few things off. You might have to be willing to be a 27 year old who's poor with a law degree collecting dust. You might have to be willing to be single and not have a family to care for. You might have to be willing to drive around in your car from high school and live with your parents. You might have to be willing to sacrifice a few dreams to get at that really big one. Then again, you might not. Who can say for sure? Not me. I'm just a guy whose team didn't make the playoffs.

 

Lastly, let me just say one more thing. Buy my books! You still have a few days to get all four books in The Kinmark Saga for $0.99 each, and Bookland is still waiting there for you to come explore all its wonderful strangeness. Buy my books. Contribute to the Foundation for a Wealthier Josh. I'll be glad you did.