But In Dog Years, I’m Barely Nine Years Old…
Ohhhhhh…. Middle-aged people can make me sooooooo cranky at times!
Myself, I’m practically the poster child for middle-age, having attended my 30th. high school reunion a few years back, but –– Damn! –– there are some middle-aged people out there who need a serious slapping.
As a case in point: while attending my 30th reunion, I ended up chatting with a former classmate who told me that it would just be a few more years before he could “spend every morning out on the golf course doing eighteen holes, and then just hang by the pool all afternoon long.”
Really?
That’s a goal?
Seriously?
Please excuse the rant that’s about to follow, but…
WTF?!?!?
We are currently living in the most creative and innovative time-period known to mankind. In all honesty, there has never –– NEVER –– been an era like the one we’re living in, where the ability to create, produce, promote, and distribute a product, idea, or art has ever been easier.
You’ve always wanted to be an author? Fine… Set aside five to ten hours every week and write the book that’s been simmering in your head for the past decade or two. When you’re done writing (and re-writing), publish it as an eBook. The only true cost will be your time.
Are you a garage tinkerer? Do you wish the funky lil’ doodads you’ve been building in your spare time could look a bit more polished and professional? No problem. There are plenty of online companies that do rapid prototyping/3D printing work, and they’re doing it at shockingly affordable prices. Folks like Ponoko or Shapeways are both good places to start. And if you’ve got a bit of a geeky streak running through you (myself, I do fit in that category), you can even build your own computer controlled robotic router –– which can then build things for you –– for just a few hundred dollars.
Want to make your millions (or at least a thousand or two) in the world of software and technology? In my neighborhood, there’s a sixteen your old kid who’s developed a time-management/note-taking app for the iPad.
Maybe you’re the sort of of person who likes to think big, and you want to market your product or ideas across the globe. Well, for the low, low price of about twenty-five dollars a month, you can have a totally functional business website up and running –– a site that can be accessed by anyone on the planet with a computer, internet access, and a PayPal account. Realize that just fifteen years ago, it would have cost at minimum –– MINIMUM — a million dollars or so to market a product across the entire planet. Today? Just $24.95 per month.
Sooooooo… The big question running through my mind (and which is basically the whole point of this snarky lil’ rant) is the following: why would anyone want to purposely step away from all these opportunities?
Honestly, why would anyone want to check out –– to remove themselves from the chance to learn, to grow, and to create on a regular basis –– and to then set “eighteen holes in the morning/hanging by the pool in afternoon” as their new purpose in life?
It’s not just a slapping that some people need…
Though a hard kick in the ass might do the trick.
Rant mode OFF.
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Dog photo via Miranda Granche –– Creative Commons
More people should read blogs like this and read books like War of Art and less of the consuming: video games, tv, etc..
Creating vs over-consuming really is something that leads to just a happier life.
Very good points in your article about how easy it is to launch an idea into the world.