Last year’s New Year’s intention was all about finding success, about leaving behind that crappy sense of failure that lurks in your dark mind corners and looking at all of my accomplishments as things to celebrate – no matter how small. And it worked! When I started looking at things through the scope of success, they became successes… or they became successes because I was looking at them through the scope of success. Chicken or the egg. I can’t be sure which came first but I don’t really care either. It was all a success.
Coming to the end of 2015, I had a direction for 2016; something more concrete than success — money. But hold on, hold on – not just money for money’s sake, money for my soul’s sake. Being a writer has never been about the “Benjamins” (ask our bank account); so money as my intention, would be a means to an end – a way to ensure that I can do what I love forever.
But choosing “money” as the theme for my year didn’t sit right.
On a cold, regular day over break, I sat in the living room. My dad was flipping through the channels when Jerry McGuire spoke to me. (Well, actually, Rod Tidwell spoke to me.) Rod talked about “the quan” – his word to encompass the whole package. He didn’t just want the money; he wanted the love, the respect, the community… and yes, the “coin” too. The quan was wanting more and knowing he deserved it — and let me repeat, not just more money. To Rod, money is fleeting, quan has longevity. Money is the sprinkles on top of an already deliciously iced, “quan” cake. This was hitting the mark of the direction I wanted to go.
Today, I came across an interview with a blogger I respect and she talked about a small company she worked for and how the owner of that company approached big, intimidating brands and convinced them that she was the bees knees awesome sauce . This blogger said, “She showed me by example that you can ask for the moon and, if you really believe in yourself, actually get it.”
Ding, ding, ding. Bingo!. There. It. Was.
Ask for the moon.
This year, I want more than money; I want what that money could symbolize: Creative freedom. Time freedom. Financial freedom. The quan, people.
And why not? I deserve it. So do you. We all deserve the moon, so why not ask for it? The 9 to 5 job-ship has sailed for me. I want to write for as long as these fingers will let me. There is no turning back and no blissful ignorance working a job that doesn’t fulfill me. I know what I want to do and doing anything else would, quite simply, just plain suck.
So this year, coming off of a year that built my confidence to a place of Yes I can as a writer, this year, I ask for the moon and I’ll remember that no one ever got anywhere by planting their feet in the ground.
P.S. Other New Year’s Intentions and seizing the yes
