'Can't' is not an option

Some weeks ago, I posted in Taking my own advice, that I'd be doing just that: taking my own advice and starting a business. Well, I've gone and done it now. The paperwork is ready to be filed and I'm doing my 'research'. As a matter of fact, without really meaning to, I'm doing one thing every day towards my goal. I seem to be gearing up for something. And I'm enjoying it (which is a major surprise)!

I thought I'd be scared out of my mind, but instead of fear I mostly have a couple of things floating around in my head. First, I think of Steve Jobs telling his audience at Stanford in 2005 that there is nothing so liberating as the certainty of your death. While that's not a particularly cheery thought, there is definitely something to that.

In my present context, there is nothing so liberating to me as the recognition of the possibility of my own trip down Alzheimer's Lane. Having seen what Mummy's not-meager-but-also-not-extensive resources have managed (and recognizing fully that in the absence of a huge job, my ar$e is probably already up a gum tree), I have to liberate myself to do something, build something that works within the confines of the universe I inhabit and yet has some money making power.  Any business I create has to allow me to work from home, and the work must fill me up in the very ways and places that caregiving empties.

The second thing that seems to have liberated me is the joy I've accidentally found in this 'work'. In his commencement speech, Jobs says that we must find what we love. Well, I love baking. Perhaps when I'm doing it for coin it will cease to be enjoyable, but I doubt that. So I'm trying to figure out all the angles; I'm fine tuning my plan and talking to folks who know something about this kind of business. We shall see what comes of it all. Just now, making these first steps makes me feel more in control of my crazy out-of-control world. That alone is a great benefit. The money will be the second!

Can you tell I'm all about the baked goods?

In the face of death (or Alzheimer's Disease in my case), what is the fear of failure? Please! My mother has no earthly idea who we are - the other day she referred to us as "the people here" - what the hell have I to fear? That could be my future. I hope it isn't, but hope ain't a strategy and I am the kind of girl who has to have a strategy. As afraid as I may be of an AD future, I'm more afraid of leaving a mess for my sister (or my poor beloved niece) to clean up than I am of falling on my face.

There are naysayers, but what business person doesn't have naysayers? So to the naysayers, I say, say your nay. I'll keep on baking and thinking and planning. Unless you're planning on coming over here and doing the needful while I go out and work for 3 pennies, I will say in the words of Nikki Haley, Gov. of South Carolina, "'Can't' is not an option."