This year was overwhelming for me. I left my job, moved back home, turned 40, and started a business. I’m thankful to have a supportive family helping me find my feet.
To do that, I just need to find balance.
Balance isn’t easy for me. My brain wants to jump from extremes
Maybe that’s why I needed to come back to Missouri—back to flyover country. It’s the neutral zone.
Balance is going to be important for the Taco Viking business, too.
When I started, I had a mercenary mindset. I was 100% in on the commercial side. The “creative” side got eaten by that. My brain was on data, research, and analytics. Art was secondary.
The pendulum is swinging the other way now. The part of me that is an “artiste” wants to take over and tell me that other part of my brain is a control freak with no soul.
That’s not really the world we live in, though. I need to eat to live and I need to sell to eat. So, that means I have to make things people want.
Which is fine. Obstacles birth creativity. That capitalist pig-dog inside my head is just hear to give me the right obstacles to create around.
It works. Designing the few Valentines’ Day things I’ve done so far has been a lot of fun. So was designing for Thanksgiving before that.
That’s something I am going to try to keep in mind in 2024. I don’t want to just make something every day. I want to make a living by making things.
It’s a balance act. Make art. Make meaning. Make it for people. Make success.
My current plan for the first quarter of 2024 is to continue to put up a new design every day. I’m developing workflows and systems and making it easier for myself to spend more time creating and less time… well, “business-ing.”
I will also be getting back into blogging. Writing a blog was a thing that kept me stable and sane for years and probably would have kept me going if I’d just kept doing it. I shouldn’t have stopped.
Lessons learned.
In 2024, I plan to write a blog post here on the Taco Viking blog every Wednesday. So, that’s something to look forward to.
That’s my plan. Make things. Be happy. Get wealthy. Conquer Mars.
So, what about you? Are you going to create? Are you goign to find balance and walk the path fo the Gray Jedi? Let me know. Maybe we can do it together.
And, if you want to see what I create, sign up below to get emails from me when I write something new or make something cool.