Something new?

I am at the edge of a change, no, not that kind of a change, I not quite 45 yet. Another kind, where I am looking at what I do for a living and what do I expect out of it in addition to keeping a roof on my head, bread on my table and my daughter in expensive private school. The kind of contemplation that should start when one is done with the raising of kids and happens at the same time as the empty nest syndrome. When people who were running around like headless chickens from work to home to pick up the kids to buy groceries to cooking the meal to feeding to cleaning and back to running to drop off the kids and being late for work meetings... wake up one morning at 55 with kids gone and nothing to rush to anymore. I do things ahead of my time, so I guess, I entered the vanprastha earlier too :)

Back to, what do I do, what does it give me? what do I look for in a job? what would I love to do? When I come upon this article in slate.
http://www.slate.com/id/2132576/?nav=navoa

It is about the joys owning a charming neighborhood cafe. And i start dreaming ....

The small cafe connects to the fantasy of throwing a perpetual dinner party, and it cuts deeper—all the way to Barbie tea sets—than any other capitalist urge.

It can't be that hard to make money off coffee, the trail blazed by starbucks has gotten people used to expensive coffee ... An espresso that required about 18 cents worth of beans (and we used very good beans) was sold for $2.50 with nary an eyebrow raised on either side of the counter. A dab of milk froth or a splash of hot water transformed the drink into a macchiato or an Americano, respectively, and raised the price to $3. The house brew too cold to be sold for $1 a cup was chilled further and reborn at $2.50 a cup as iced coffee, a drink whose appeal I do not even pretend to grasp.


Just when I was being lulled by a vision of cozy life with no hurry mornings , where I could take the time to chat and make coffee, here it comes the reality check. with numbers, Budgeting $15 for the payroll for every hour your charming cafe is open (let's say 10 hours a day) relieves you of $4,500 a month. That gives you another $4,500 a month for rent and $6,300 to stock up on product. It also means that to come up with the total needed $18K of revenue per month, you will need to sell that product at an average of a 300 percent markup.

I don't have a marriage to fear for, but apparently, it can have detrimental effects on one...Two highly educated professionals with artistic aspirations have just put themselves—or, as we saw it, each other—on $8-per-hour jobs slinging coffee. After four more months, we grew suspicious of each other's motives, obsessively kept track of each other's contributions to the cause ("You worked three days last week!"), and generally waltzed on the edge of divorce.

but the coup de grâce was the quote from the bad boy chef Anthony Bourdain "The most dangerous species of owner ... is the one who gets into the business for love."

That seals it, the only reason I would go into a business would be for the love of it ... essentially making it a bad proposition. Where did the entrepreneurial skills of my immigrant grandpa go I wonder, they haven't been handed to me.

So another day and another dream squashed. But tomorrow’s another day, and I am sure I'll find an occupation which will allow me to bring world peace, or utilize my sabre tongue to write some scathing reviews... while allowing me to make the six figure salary that I do right now...

Closure

what is it about things that makes us wants to paint things in clear black and white, even though a side of us knows about the grayscale-ness of the palette that paints this world and the people in it? The things I talk about is people and all situations with people in them are cloudy.
They say an unexamined life is not worth living; so, most of us thinking beings go to murky places and people in our minds; to wander through misty landscapes to see clearly and alas, pigeonhole; something we euphemistically call 'learning from our past'.
Let me take you though one such journey ....

Why did he do that and why did I let him?

the proponents of Lean Software Development say that every time you attempt root cause analysis ( RCA), you ask ‘why’ five times . So, here goes:

Why did he do it?
It was in his interest to act this way.

Why?
this way he could have his cake and eat it too.

Why?
Because he did not want to choose(lose).

Why?
because choosing would make him lose either the cake or the eating of it; and he did not want to lose either.

Why?
Because he is a effing loser!

Brilliant, RCA leads to pigeonholing and since X was a loser, I was a better person and it is so much better this way. Good riddance to bad rubbish etc.

well, thinking minds are not so easy to quieted, middle of the night I am up again, if X was such a loser why did I let him go on so?

RCA at my rescue again ...

Why did I let him go on so?
because I did not see it at first.

Why ?
because I wanted to believe.

Why?
because I am an optimist, and I don't want to give up on hope.

Why?
because if hope is gone there is nothing to live for.

Why?
because I need a reason outside of me to live.

Why? because I am an effign sop who cannot live just because.

Great, so now I was in a pigeon hole too,
I stank because I was needy
And he stank because he was greedy...

What a great world, all is black!

Next morning after enough coffee to drown a child, as I was driving to work, my mind flashed back to the moment by the lake; peace, calm that was palpable, it felt good sitting silently, feeling really still inside and being able to share the beauty of the moment. That was good. And suddenly the blackness of the world lifted. It is not all bad. It never is. There is good in everyone, and believing needs you to be able to see the white despite the black.
I guess that is as close to closure I will get in this life time, and it ain't so bad.