I’m pretty young, but sometimes it seems like the answer to this question is already expected of me – especially since I’m supposed to be off to university in two years. I’ve wondered about this myself and I know that I have many aspirations, but are they truly what I want to do in life? I don’t know.
The thing is, as we grow older the aspect of money becomes more and more important and before we know it, money has power much more power over us than our parents telling us to clean the dishes or was the clothes. I’ve learnt to fear what I want in the future because it may just lead to an unstable income. Upon this realization, I started to question the things I want. Am I wishing for things for the purpose of desire or is it because of money?
I’ve recently started an Etsy shop and to be honest, I like it. It’s exhilarating for a 16 year old like me to be venturing out beyond the confines of my comfort zone to the money making world. The thing is though, I’m making no money. No one has visited the shop and I have no clue what I’m doing.
Today I was actually reading this book called Rich Dad Poor Dad and it really got me thinking about whether I made this Etsy shop out of the fear of having no money or out of on-the-spot desire that may just lead me to plummet into a fire pit of my own greed. I will say that I don’t regret starting the Etsy page, but I may have been a little impulsive and now I have no clue what I’m doing.
This is become a little more of a confessional than I thought it would be, but when you’re stressing over your Etsy page a day after you started it, I think I have an excuse to become a little frustrated and scared. I put quite a bit of money into it and I’d make quite a profit off of it if it worked out, but I don’t know if it will.
For those who do want to check out my Etsy page here’s the link: https://www.etsy.com/shop/WishfulCreationsShop
A little shameless self promotion – I know. But I’m genuinely afraid of the future. And this is what is scaring me as I continue to read Rich Dad Poor Dad because all of my achievements in school are definitely fueled by fear and my aspirations are merely aspirations created on the basis of a 16 year old trying to figure out what to do in life.
I think it’s a little ridiculous that we’re expected to know these things and people make it seem like it’s what we’ll be doing for the rest of out lives, what with society making university a huge deal and getting a stable job being the norm. I don’t even know what I enjoy doing at this age for goodness sake! How am I supposed to answer this question?
I want to do a lot of things in life – start my own business, help people, do this and do that, but I don’t know if I’ll even be able to do that successfully, heck I don’t even know if it’s truly what I want to do.
The thing is, what’s got me really down with my Etsy shop and my future aspirations is the fact that I may not even make it out. I may just fail. I get that people say mistakes are lessons and what not, but it’s a hard concept to apply to life when you’re losing a lot of money from these mistakes and the outcome may not even be good. And these failures really do follow you as you continue on with other things in life. It feels like a demon haunting you to remind you of these things and it’s what makes you cautious, which isn’t bad, but it’s hard to make these demons into lessons to learn from when you’re constantly running away from it.
This isn’t the mentality anyone should have, but it’s a problem I deal with – I’m a negative Nancy what can I say?
Although it’ll be hard, I will try to persevere and continue on selling the products I do on Etsy and deal with my failures as they come. For now I have a slight bit of hope, but with little marketing experience, I genuinely don’t know how these products will sell. Nevertheless, I’ll continue because life doesn’t stop for anyone and the world will keep rotating even if I stay at a standstill.
Cindy
chasing the unknown 