In the “Episode” posts I’ll try and recount the steps I took toward opening a Box. Considering I haven’t officially opened yet it’ll be an ongoing process.

Breaking up is no fun for anyone.  Losing “The Perfect Spot” cut deep.  It was kind of ridiculous how much it felt like a girlfriend breaking up with you.  ”We were so perfect for each other.”  ”I thought we were going to be together foreverrrrrr.”  Life can be so harsh sometimes.  

I don’t know if my situation was that similar to others in that finding a good spot was a huge pain in the ass.  From the stories I’ve heard a lot of people had a fairly easy time finding a spot, others (like me) had an impossible time.  Chalk it up to different strokes for different folks.  In other words, everyone’s experience is different.  For me, funding was fairly easy.  Finding a spot, really tough.  

I kept my eyes open to a few other spots in the area.  I loved what the neighborhood had to offer, so I tried to make friends with people who knew the area. There are various people (be they real estate agents or politicians) who are always looking to bring different businesses into their areas especially ones that are VERY community friendly.  One spot that I liked was right around the corner and had a lot more foot traffic.

Well thanks to the wonderful Google, I managed to find not only the title and lot/square number, I found a full history of the place.  It used to be the Fun Fair Video Store.  Sounds great right?  Fun!  Fair!  Well turns out it used to be a Porn Store and it went out of business because it was running a drug and prostitution ring.  Did I mention this place is in an up and coming neighborhood?  I don’t judge, so I wanted to check it out anyway.  Yeah it was a bad idea.  I had to take about 30 showers before I felt any semblance of cleanliness.

Keeping positive is one of those terribly cliche yet really important aspects.  Sometimes things come easy and sometimes things seem virtually impossible.  I think it’s important to re-iterate this: YOU WILL NEVER FEEL 100% CONFIDENT IN WHAT YOU’RE DOING!! It’s very easy to let the fact that you don’t know EXACTLY what you’re doing take over when you run into an obstacle.  The one thing I couldn’t stop thinking about was how untested I was.  How I didn’t have enough experience.  How I felt everything was way over my head.  Then I would almost literally shake it off and get back to work. In the words of Jay-Z quoting Notorious B.I.G “Stay busy, stay working.”  Does it feel overwhelming?  Absolutely.  But that’s not what it is, that’s just how it feels.  No matter how things feel, it’s not reality, it’s just your interpretation.

There is a reason why not everyone owns their own box.  It’s friggin hard to do.  Keep that in mind.  You can either give up like about 99% of people who try, or you can resolve to be better.  It’s up to you.  It’s really pretty simple.  Either you quit or you open a box.  Those are really the only two options.  If you genuinely resolve yourself to the latter, you will without a doubt own a box.  By keeping that in mind, I managed to keep working, and find a new “Perfect Spot.”  This time I was armed with the knowledge I only could’ve learned through my experiences with failure.