I have a small business. I sell an upscale luxury item. However, unlike a lot of folks who sell such items, I've never been even close to being able to afford enjoying the items I sell. Because they are "hand made," my start up costs weren't so huge that I couldn't get into the game -- again, unlike others who sell the kind of luxury items I sell. What it took, though, was time. I didn't have money, but I had time. So I "spent"...and spent and spent and spent TIME until my products were top notch, desirable and selling well enough for me to actually dream about not needing a "real" job any more to keep my little business afloat during the slow times.
And then I found myself f'ed over like everyone else by one of the most short-sighted Presidents in the history of this country.
Now, like so many, I am struggling to hang onto what took years and years to produce, hoping, praying and, yes, TRUSTING, that our fine President can be like those heros in the movies and overcome all the odds that are stacked against him. I'm treading water (but barely holding my head above it), waiting for our hero to swoop in and save the day.
And I mean that.
This is what upsets me sometimes about some attitudes toward the man. I know it is hard to trust that someone you've never met cares about little ol' you. And I know that it is hard to have faith in humankind these days when there are so many examples out there, day in and day out, of the sheer nastiness of a loud subset. And sometimes I even wonder myself if I'm being strong or foolish, continuing to plunk down the last of my savings into a business that can't be sustained unless and until people start buying luxuries again without bargaining down the price so I end up losing money by actually making a sale (or at least that's the way it feels).
My friends think I'm nuts to be hanging in there. I'm well-qualified in another profession. Where I reside now is a good location for my business, but too competitive for me to get a really good job in that other profession, especially since I've accepted lesser jobs in it in order to have enough time to keep building my business.
[Oh, the sacrifices we knowingly make! How easy it is to question them now. To wonder if I ruined my old age by being so foolish in my (relative) youth.]
But I can't stop trusting the man -- and the people who made him "The Man." And this is what I don't understand about his supporter-critics. I say in my comments that none of us can actually KNOW what goes on behind the scenes, what he has faced, why he makes this or that decision. In response to that, what I do is what, I think, many people do when faced with the unknown and/or unknowable: I have faith.
[Don't get me wrong, though: I am not a religious person. For example, I'll go only so far as to say that evolution could, conceivably, be the same as intelligent design...but it doesn't really matter to me if God is a god or a just a benevolent ET living in a different space-time continuum. Nevertheless, I can't turn off this FAITH I have. I believe that whatever God is or isn't, he is GOOD. Maybe he's goodness itself, hardwired into our brains in a natural, survival-of-the-fittest-so-you-better-know-"good"-when-you-see-it type of way. I mean, really, it can't be a coincidence that "God" is only one typo away from "good," right?]
Anyway, the man is good. The people who voted him into office are good. The things he stands for, the things those people voted for -- it's all good. And so I am hanging on to my faith in good.
Where will that faith be a year from now? It is being so tested, so strained. If it does not survive, will I? If my business does not survive, will I? Am I a fool to trust the man to save the day? To trust "good" to save the day?
I am not a fool. I am, in fact, a political junkie. I read both sides of every issue (heck, I even check in with Rush Limbaugh every now and then just to see how far down the rabbit hole he's gone). I watch and I research and I do all my homework, usually, before settling on an opinion. That's also what I did over all those years when I was building my business, and I know that's why I succeeded. Doing your homework before making a decision is what produces success when luck doesn't plop it into your lap, IMO. I've had my share of luck, of course, but I like to think that doing my homework laid the foundation for the luck to stick.
Until I found myself f'ed over like everyone else by one of the most short-sighted Presidents in the history of this country.
I could move to survive. I could easily get a job in some Mississippi or Missouri or Idaho or Tennessee nowheresville where nobody wants to work but my skills are needed anyway. I'm lucky (no, actually it was a conscious decision) that that other profession of mine is needed everywhere and there's no guesswork involved in qualifying for it. But the question remains: Should I? Should I stop treading water, waiting and hoping, and just let it go? I can move pieces of my business, but not the whole thing, and the result would be not only a smaller scale, but an odds-against-making-it-again disadvantage due to increasing the distance between my product and those who buy it...when they can afford to. Am I greedy to want to stay and try to hang in there? To hope I'll make a windfall sale (again) that will sustain the business long enough for the man to work his magic? Is it greed, confidence, faith or foolishness that keeps me trying?
I like to think it is trust. In the end, I figure I agree with that saying, "I only have this one life to live." I don't feel like I am wasting that life by waiting, by trusting, by having faith. I can't NOT believe in this country or that man. It's my country! He's my President! Who would we be if we stopped believing, people? Who are we when we cannot trust? I'm not sure what the answer to that is collectively, but I do know that I would NOT be ME -- and I will be damned (maybe literally???) if I let that short-sighted idiot destroy the me I am! So even when thedamn fine President we have now doesn't do what I'd like him to do, even when he infuriates me by not getting out there are saying what I want him to say, in the end, I always end up returning to the trust I have in him and the country that made him "the man."
So I will be patient. I will tread water, even though, like you, Corwin Webber, I am tired, too. But no matter how foolish or stupid it may seem to others, I admit that I am buoyed by trust in the man and the country which made him.