Another month has come and gone, and I return from a trip visiting family to see my gardens browning in the increasing cold. While I am a lover of autumn, a deep melancholy has always set in at this time of year as I watch my plants die back with the changing seasons. This year, it means more than my all-consuming hobby being affected. My gardening jobs will lessen with the weather, and I will have to focus on another area for the cold months. Change I cannot stop fuels changes I alone must make with the business. I'll essentially have to straddle two professions for a time period. I may even take a part time job to bridge the season gap. As a first year business owner, this transition is daunting, if only for the fact that it is a change I devise and carry out completely on my own.
I am a woman of routine. I like a steady, mostly predictable lifestyle. Owning my own business, especially one where my office is whatever garden I am working in, is anything but a predictable routine. Some days I have six clients that all want immediate design feedback while I'm physically exerting myself on an install. Other days, my one job is cut short by torrential rain. But sufficient for the day is the work therein. I am learning to be content day by day, and moment by moment. This is where I capture my routine; by letting every day be a day focused on living for that day, and every moment that's given to me.
I read a poignant quote last night, that's too long to repeat here, but in essence the writer was penning his disdain for humans' obsession with the term work, and the need to be more and better, as if success were a continual stockpile. If only we took our cue from animals, it continued, and just lived each day to gather the things of immediate need, and leave all else to the next day's needs. Looking through the lens of today's society, this lifestyle would seem impossible at worst, reckless at best. No retirement? What about savings for that unexpected hospital visit? But to me, it is the picture of a life of contentment. I don't want to get into philosophy or deep thinking of materialistic versus whatever the hell the opposite of that would be, but I must say the mainstream race to security against what might be, at the expense of enjoying today's beauty, seems a miserable existence.
I refuse to live driven by bank backed pieces of paper that exchange hands so often, they can hardly be called my wealth. The only hard rule I have with money is owe no man. Is my way of life risky? Is it any less than the business man who puts his faith in a corporation that today rules the market and tomorrow is crushed, dragging his years of pension with them? Is risk really a tool sufficient to weigh how we live our life? If we did, I'd hardly think driving a car or walking across the street would be worth it. Risk is inherent to living, so I refuse to use it as my measuring tool to traverse this one life we are given.
The phrase "failure is not an option" is an overly simplistic view-
failure is an option every day, and an acceptable end to that day, if a
better way is what I am meant to take tomorrow. If I fail, it is but today's failure, that will be left at the evening's feet and discarded at morning light for a new inspiration. Wealth is an empty concept we have dressed up in fine robes to call our master, when, in reality, it gives us nothing but shackles. I am the richest woman alive- I am rich with love, with growth, with moments of life in which I can bring joy to others. This is true wealth. It feeds my soul with the security that I am alive today, and sufficient for TODAY is the life I live.
