It’s not for everyone. Many people are incapable of having a
point like this in their life, simply because they have obligations that do not
allow it. For many others, such a phase is unnecessary: the life they want and
have imagined is accessible to them without growing pains, an uncharted
outcome, fear or doubt. Some of us, however, are not so lucky: we are the
chosen few that cannot seem to take the easy way in.
Yes, it’s true: I make my life harder than it needs to be. I
feel a need to find a path that has not been tread before; that is barely
visible through the underbrush; that many can’t see at all, and that even those
with a decent weedwacker would avoid. Yes, it’s true: I want to be Steve Jobs,
and develop a fantastic idea in my garage.
Okay, maybe I won’t be able to invent the next big
technological breakthrough. Maybe I’m just fooling myself that my ideas, my
drive and my dream will get me anywhere at all. Maybe I’m not the next Steve
Jobs, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a right to the Steve Jobs Garage
Phase.
The SJG Phase is where you’re hunkered down with your
project. To passerby and people listening at the garage door, it may not seem
like there’s much going on. They may not realize that you’re asleep at 10 a.m.
because you were up until 4 a.m. agonizing about the next step; that you’re
working weekends and strange hours with little to no pay to try and coax your
little dream to life. They don’t realize that your dream is finicky and you
haven’t figured out what to feed it yet; they may not know that at the
slightest upset, it will retreat into its shell, never to be heard from again.
The most dangerous part of the SJG Phase is the mailman; the
friend, the family member. They knock on the garage door, hear nothing, and
enter. They see nothing they understand, shake their heads and proclaim that
you are not making headway. The tiny dream is hiding from them, so they cannot
see its glimmer of intelligence or potential for growth. All they see is you,
in the middle of your garage, surrounded by pizza boxes, insisting loudly that
you have not lost your mind, that they would understand if only they could see.
This well-meaning person cannot understand, but they try to
make you understand that there’s an
easier way out. You don’t have to live in the garage, they say. Come out into
the light.
At this point, you have a choice. You can turn your back
forever on that tiny idea and let it die alone in the garage, or you turn your
back on your well-meaning friend and let them think you’re crazy. It’s not an
easy choice; some have waffled back and forth, running back to the garage to
search for the tiny dying idea, others burying the memory deep because it hurts
too much to think about it in the light of day.
If you choose to remain in the garage, you shrug your
shoulders, wish your well-meaning friend a good day, and close the garage door
behind them. It may not be the most hospitable of places, but the garage is
nevertheless home to your idea. For what it’s worth, you’re going to feed that
idea and watch it grow into whatever the heck it wants to. When its limbs are
strong enough and its little heart beats furiously at its own accord, you will
follow it out of the garage, and into the light.
Love and dingy garage kisses,
Morgan
