Are You A Headcase?

Are You A Head Case?

Way back in the day when I was in high school, I had a friend who went away on vacation.  When she came back, she told me she got me a gift.  I’m thinking, “Great!  A free T-Shirt!”  I mean really, who wouldn’t think that right?

Anyway, she gave me a little bag (much too small to have a t-shirt in it) and said, “I think this was perfect for you.”  Now I was curious.

So I opened the bag and reached inside and pulled out a button. You know, one of those metal buttons with a pin on the back that you wear when someone’s running for office or something.  “Just what I needed,” I thought, “a button.”  O.k., that was sarcasm in case you couldn’t tell by reading my thoughts.

“Well, let’s at least see what it says,” I thought.

So I turned it over an do you know what it said?

It simply said, “It ain’t easy being weird.”

Bam.  She hit the nail on the head.

You see, I’ve always been a bit weird.  Some would say a bit crazy.  Which if you know anything about my childhood, you’d say is a bit weird… or crazy.

Some of you know that I’m Asian.  And my parents were strict in my upbringing.  I had very traditional, strict parents who’s mantra to me was, “Go to school, get good grades, get a good job!”  What’s so crazy about that?  Nothing.  Common for many families – especially strict, traditional, Asian families.

So I went to school and got good grades (and eventually got a good job).  None of that stopped me from being a little weird though.  Ya see, I always felt like I thought a little differently than most of my classmates.  I thought differently than my parents wanted me to think.

In reality, the thought of getting a good job didn’t really appeal to me.  I really didn’t want to work for someone else, doing something someone else wanted me to do in order to get a paycheck so I can scrape by.  I couldn’t define it yet and I knew there was something more for me in life.  I knew that I was capable of more and that I wanted more.

And so that showed up in my life.  Sure, I went to school and got good grades – I followed the rules set out for me by my parents, my teachers, my “society”.  And outside of that, I did everything else I could not to be normal.  Of course, I didn’t realize it at the time.

Have you ever felt that way?  It’s like tiny little rebellions in your life wherever and whenever you can.  Enough to push the boundaries, just not enough to break anything… yet.

Well fast forward many, many moons and here I am with my own business, making my own path.  I did the corporate thing, working over 11 years in IT with a multi-billion dollar company.  It just wasn’t my gig.  Sure, it paid well and I still wanted more.

It wasn’t until I started working for myself, taking control of my destiny, making my own decisions – right, wrong, or indifferent that I really started to understand things.  It was like a veil was lifted from my face and things started becoming a bit more clear. 

If you’re running your own business, if you’re a small business owner, you might understand what I’m saying.  You kind of have to be a head c

ase in order to take that leap of faith and do something yourself.

And you know what?  That’s perfectly o.k.  That’s better than o.k.  That’s life.

No one said it best than the late Steve Jobs though.  When I heard this, again, nail on the head.  Maybe you’ll feel the same way too…

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”