The End/The Beginning – Chasing a Dream

We all wish we could enter major decisions on our terms but life never obliges. Whether sudden or gradually, we are handed a moment of time that requires a determination of action. For me, this moment occurred on February 22, 2024. I gave my notice to a company that had employed me for 16 and a half years, with nothing to step into, as others might assess.

Yet I see things different. I have something to step in. I have a craft, a skill, a desire, a goal, a dream, an opportunity, a unique moment of time. I have my photography. This gift that was given to me late in life and offers me, for the first time in my life, the opportunity to direct my footsteps on my terms. I am overjoyed by this moment of time that the Providential hand of God has given me. I am also nervous.

It goes without saying that dreams do not pay the bills. Photography has not yet become a major source of income thus until it does, I have to rely upon other means to support until this venture takes off. It is here where the mind gets lost in woods. How do I balance my time? Do I pursue opportunities in the field I left, for I did not hate the work? This avenue would mean that most of my time would be dominated and photography would be that which is pursued incrementally, as before. Or, do I accept employment as supplemental, allowing my photography to be pursued with my full focus? This is where I ask my heavenly father for discernment.

Durnig this adventure of my music photography, I have always tried to put myself in your shoes. As a creative artist, I can understand but I have never been able to envision the full time pursuit that you daily engage in. I have never had one’s every waking moment obsessed with a passion, until now. Starting at 5:01pm today, March 8, 2024, I will have that opportunity. Do I grasp it and run or do I push it aside from time to time as I seek financial certainty that will lift the extreme pressure that currently burdens my wife and I.

In the movie, “The Way”, Emilio Estevez plays the deceased son of Martin Sheen. In a memory, Martin Sheen recalls the drive of him taking Emilio to the airport. The father, Martin Sheen, is asking his son about his plan for life. Emilio replies back, “Life is not planned. It is lived.” Let’s face it, most of us are living a life that we plan daily. We hope to live a plan but in doing so many fail to plan to live. My years of working for businesses was a plan to achieve. It never happened, by my definition. I look back on 34 years of working for businesses and ask myself, what did I accomplish. Where is my legacy?

Proverbs 13:22 states, “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children….” This does not mean wealth. A good name is the best inheritance anyone can receive. I view this as that which my grandsons and others can look upon when I am gone and know I was here. I have begun to do this with my books, my website and soon my magazine. My goal is to document and preserve the daily existence or your incredible talent. I want people in the future to know the real reason Austin is the “Live Music Capital of the World.” It was not because of SXSW or ACL. It was because many people with a burning desire to share their passion woke up each day and didn’t give up. To have told this is the legacy I want to leave behind.

Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. (ESV)

Matthew 6:34

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. (ESV)

The above scriptures are my comfort, if I allow them to be. But I am human, taught from day one to take control and make the most. “If you do not plan to succeed then you plan to fail.”

The above scriptures do not mean that I sit idilly by and wait for things to happen. I must act. I must do. So I will and this is where the doubt creeps in. The uncertainty of what I should do or did I do the right thing. Prayer, faith, and everyone’s support will be the strength I draw upon to make this dream a reality.

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.J

We will succeed!