Nov 2nd, 2002
Money and Happiness
Later that same day, Kelly came over again and she regaled us with tales of her adventures at Monzu, a foo-foo restaurant in La Jolla where she worked as a hostess.
“I just can’t be bothered with being nice to these old men that ask for my phone number anymore,” she said. “I don’t know what it is about these old men that makes them think that I would be interested in them. And they always give me their business cards, what is it with the business cards?”
The way that Kelly spoke made me feel that there was absolutely no interval between the point at which a thought entered her mind and the point at which she would externalize said thought. It was a perpetually flowing waterfall of dialogue that at times seemed to defy gravity by flowing in preposterously disconnected directions. At one point she would be talking about old men trying to seduce her at work, one second later, she would be talking about her friend at home who only dated black guys, and one second later, she would have returned to her original train of thought. At the same time, whenever someone responded, she listened intently at what they were saying.
I personally found it to be extremely entertaining - talking with her was like stumbling upon a tree bearing an endless variety of fruits and having the luxury to pick whatever you felt like at that point in time.
Kelly’s endless line of dialogue turned towards one of her friends who had started an internet-based business back in Virginia and become rather successful, Karl’s ever-present entrepreneurial spirit prompted him to reply to me, “I still don’t know why we couldn’t do the same thing with Roaring Fish.”
Karl was, of course, referring to a company that we had attempted to start, creating web pages for small businesses. There were two main stumbling blocks to our companies progress: one being the fact that neither of us were any good at web-design, the other being that neither of us had ever had any experience with finding clients. Our company’s first and only client had been one a family friend who wanted us to create a website showcasing her artwork. That had more or less, been the pinnacle of our companies’ success. Shortly thereafter, Roaring Fish had taken a turn for the worse as we failed to land any more clients. At one point, Karl had walked into a used-lamp store and asked if the proprietor wanted us to create a website for her, to which she had responded in the negative, and shortly after this incident, our company folded and dissolved into the endless void of the internet.
To this day, Karl had maintained that if we had been more aggressive in our pursuit of clients, we would have eventually found success, which is what prompted him to respond in the manner that he did when Kelly had brought up the example of her friend who had successfully started his own business.
“Roaring Fish didn’t fail because we weren’t aggressive pursuing clients,” I said.
“It failed because about a million people thought of the same idea years before we did.”
“We need to find a niche, something that no one has though of before,” Karl said. “Like, like,” Karl muttered. “Like down in Pacific Beach,” he continued. “Remember when James had said that he wondered why there wasn’t any ice cream carts down on the beach?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Well, maybe it’s just because no one has thought about doing that yet,” he responded and I could tell that he was beginning to get excited.
“Maybe it’s because the zoning regulations in Mission Beach don’t allow ice cream trucks,” I responded.
“Then we figure out what the zoning rules are, and we figure out a way around them. That is how you have to do business, you have to be able to do things that other people wouldn’t think of,” Karl said.
Karl was starting to get an inspired look in his eye and there was something about it that bothered me and I couldn’t figure out what it was.
“You have to find something like that, which no one has done before, sacrifice a few years getting it together and making your money, and then once it is set up, you get out and just enjoy the fruits of your labor.”
“Karl,” I responded, trying to get his attention.
“And then, you can do whatever you want,” he concluded with more than a little self-satisfaction present in his voice.
“I disagree completely,” I responded, which happened to be one of my favorite ways to begin a rebuttal. “I think you do something you are interested in and everything else follows.”
“Wouldn’t you rather have the freedom to do whatever you are interested in without worrying about money,” Karl responded. “You work hard for about three years, and then you are free to do whatever you want.”
“Three years?” I said, repeating his estimate. “Three years to set up a profitable business that will support you for the rest of your life?”
“Okay, maybe five or six years,” he responded.
“If you tell anyone who has started their own business and been successful, that it only takes five years, I think they would laugh in your face. Besides,” I continued. “Let’s say that it does only take five years, that is still five years of your life that you are essentially throwing away, and for what?”
“For the freedom to do whatever you want for the rest of your life,” he answered.
“I think you find something you love, and you do that, and everything will come to you in due time.”
From out of the corner of my eye, I could see Kelly nodding in agreement.
“I think it’s safe to assume,” I continued, making eye contact with both Kelly and Karl. “That all of us are going to be financially secure by the time we’re about forty. It’s just a matter of what we do in those intervening years that determines whether or not we are happy. Personally, I don’t care how much money I have when I’m forty, if I had spent the past fifteen years selling ice-cream to get there. Ultimately, I’d rather be at age forty, making a decent living, with fifteen years of memories, doing the things I loved, than be a forty-year-old millionaire with fifteen years of memories of ice-cream.”
I looked out of the corner of my eye again and could see Kelly smiling. Karl thought for a moment before saying, “I don’t know, I guess I just think differently.”
Later that same evening, the three of us went to a local dive bar and had drinks. Images of meeting a cute girl without much of a personality and for once in my life, not asking her for her phone number. Talking with Kelly about our respective sexual pasts, her face close to mine, staring into her eyes, and then returning home and seeing her and Karl disappear into his room. Through a door left slightly ajar, I caught a glimpse of them sitting on his bed. She was lying on her stomach as he massaged her shoulders.
