Taking the road less traveled
When I decided to create and launch a website in 2015, I wasn’t sure where to start. Like many of you, at this point in my life, I felt uncertain and lost. I knew what I wanted, but I didn’t know how to do it. After months and months of continuous research, I figured out a method that worked for me. Even then, I was in uncharted territory.
No one close to me, or around me at all for that matter, was trying to become an entrepreneur. The closest I would come to that word was watching YouTube or an episode of Shark Tank. It’s not that my closest friends didn’t have dreams and aspirations just like I did, but they didn’t do what I did. In my conversations with those close friends, many of them talked like they wanted to be an entrepreneur, but didn’t walk like it.
Not that I always did, either.
It’s not easy
Taking the road less traveled isn’t easy, hence the naming. It’s the harder of two choices. Throughout my life, I’ve met many individuals who’ve taken the road often traveled, whether it be due to the pressures of society, or from their parents and the person they wanted them to become.
Which, while we’re at it, the person your parents want you to become and the person you want to become, could very well be two different people. Going against the grain of everything you were taught and conditioned to be as a child is difficult.
As a matter of fact, it is one of the hardest things you will ever do.
The glorification of the road less traveled
Often, society paints a glorified picture when it comes to taking the road less traveled. Large media corporations display what they think this looks like through advertisements. They take an “if you are willing to put in the work, you can do anything, even become an entrepreneur” approach.
While I believe in this to an extent, they don’t discuss the pitfalls and downright sacrifices we, as entrepreneurs, have to make to get to a place of sustainability or contentment. The rigorous hours we pour into our craft, the nights we could go out with friends but choose to stay in and work on our dreams. The nights we cry in bed because we aren’t where we envisioned ourselves in the progression of our dreams. The times we had to put ourselves out there in hopes of getting recognized. The times we pitched an idea and were denied again, again, and again.
“It’s in these moments of anguish where true entrepreneurs are made.”
Entrepreneurship isn’t for the faint of heart
Anything worth doing is worth overdoing, right? There are moments of defeat and anguish throughout the journey of taking the road less traveled. They can come in many forms, and perhaps the hardest part about taking this road is the ability to stay afloat. To not give up. To stay up late. To say no to your friends, to pursue your dreams, tirelessly working until you get to where you want to be.
It’s called the road less traveled for a reason. In my experiences of taking this road as a part of my journey, I can’t tell you it will be easy by any means, but I can tell you one thing with certainty, it will be worth it. Let me repeat that:
It will be worth it.
Pursuing my dreams and aspirations is one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done in my life. Yet, it is also one of the most rewarding, self-fulfilling, feel-good aspects of life I’ve ever attempted, too.
