At my Inner Circle meeting yesterday, Norm reminded me of something I said four years ago when I first met him at one of the first meetings of the Twin Cities’ Fast Company of Friends that we organized. He asked me why I wasn’t an entrepreneur. I told him I thought of myself as one, even though I’d been an employee for 99% of my adult working life… but that I didn’t want to work that hard.
Now that I’ve been on my own for nearly two years, is there any going back? I don’t know. There are definite costs to the past couple of years, apart from the financial: I’ve been a lot less social. I’ve been far less involved in the community. And I’ve cut way back on many of my favorite leisure activities: camping, bicycling, snowboarding, motorcycling.
And yet I persist, in part because I believe in what I’m trying to do, that I believe in this as my vocation. So even though I’m giving up stuff — sacrificing — I don’t really feel bad about it, like I’ve been deprived, or that I’m missing out. And I don’t think I’ve gone overboard, i.e., I don’t think I’ve been sacrificing my relationships with immediate family members (except maybe when Robbie gets upset with our finances). And I’ve not been sacrificing my health. I could be wrong about all this, of course, but all I can do is stay alert to what I might learn.