Blind Leading the Blind
Last week I was in Miami, Florida. I had been dealing with nothing but the boring logistics of business, the exhausting art of promotion and what was beginning to feel like the endless peddling of t-shirts everywhere I went. My spirits were low. I felt disheartened and uninspired. I was tapped out mentally, physically and most importantly, spiritually. In the midst of dealing with the material realities of my endeavor and the small, stupid-but-necessary details that go along with running a business, I felt like I had completely lost sight of the big picture. I was feeling this way right as Sean, my co-captain, had taken a large leap of faith in his dreams and in me and was preparing to return back to Florida. His exit from The Hatrix (thanks D.O.C. for the perfect terminology) was not an easy one for either one of us. It seemed like no matter which direction we turned someone was rolling another boulder in our way, throwing us another negative comment or demanding another dollar, another apology or another justification for our irresponsibility, our irrationality and our deviation from the social norm. Someone said we were like “the blind leading the blind.”
Excited as I was to have Sean back, a sense of panic started to set in. I imagine that it is the sense of panic that a father feels when confronted with putting food on the table and making ends meet; the panic of the provider. I have a whole new respect for my father, my stepfather and breadwinners everywhere. The panic of the provider is a silent panic, because you cannot show your fear. You cannot show your doubts, your worries or your concerns to the people who are looking to you to make it happen. If the provider is worried, the dependents are going to freak out. It was one thing to be responsible for making it happen for my self, but now someone else would be dependent on PHETASY as well. I began to understand why people, more often than not, opt to take the low road in life. It’s much easier to have people expecting you to fail; than to have them believe in you. I felt alone. I felt depressed. And for the first time in awhile, I felt scared.
I knew that when I started this journey, I had a really good reason for doing it. I vaguely remembered some sense of a higher purpose. I also remembered being excited at the thought of employing other people and allowing them to do what they loved instead of being frightened by the thought. I was pretty sure at one point I’d had a clear vision; but at that moment I could not for the life of me remember it—let alone tap into it. I began to wonder if it was all worth it. I wondered if I was in over my head. The doubts started to creep in. The voices of all the haters started to scream in my ears. Not far behind the doubt, came the inevitable waves of fear. Maybe we were the blind leading the blind.
There is no going back on this journey, but I had lost sight of was how far I had come. This dream started almost six years ago with a simple idea. A year ago at this time I was waitressing and writing a column for my local paper. But the dream still plagued me. Knowing nothing about anything, six months ago, I produced my first t-shirt. A month later, I produced my first card. Almost two months ago I launched this site.
And now I find myself touring the country with my company, something I have dreamed about doing as long as I have dreamed about PHETASY. We cannot go back on our journey, but we cannot ever forget or underestimate where we came from. It was remembering this and deciding to make moves and leave Florida that finally snapped me out of my funk.
We don’t have much. We have Sean’s nautical compass. We have the Castle Hill lighthouse miniature on our dashboard. We have Beck’s Sea Change on the stereo. We have this moment. We have a long, long road ahead of us. And we have this beautiful Missouri sunset we are currently witnessing as we head towards Oklahoma. Some call it crazy. Some call it the blind leading the blind. Others might call it faith. I don’t care what you call it; no matter how scary it is sometimes, I’ll blindly take the journey over the final destination any day.
Comments 
