November 7, 2017
Fear
1 Old Broken Road
Inmymind, CA 92500
Dear Fear,
This letter serves as an immediate eviction notice. You are to leave the residence you have occupied for the last 55 years. rent free I might remind you, and find what you may in a location other than anywhere in the proximity of Inmymind, CA. There will be no suitable dwellings for you in said city as I own it. But should you need a reference for an abode in the neighboring city of Outofmymind, I will be happy to furnish at least one.
Due to your, I re-iterate, “rent free” status, I do not feel compelled to give a reason for your displacement. But I will do so anyway. For one, because you have voiced opinions to your local housing authority, of which I will address, and two, for my own enhancement, so that I may put your concerns out of my thoughts, preferably for good.
I am preparing an extensive remodel of the entire area. This remodel is well underway. You have noticed some changes on your street. Heavy equipment is rolling in daily, as are construction trailers and mobile housing. I know you trouble yourself with how this commotion will affect the landscape. I have it on good authority that the integrity of the landscape is ample enough to support all that you see.
I also know that you have expressed your “whys” the project will not succeed. They have been scanned, transposed to text, saved to a file and glanced over, and I have had my secretary place your hand scribbled original in the shredder next to her desk. Thank you. I will copy and paste each here and respond with enlightenment.
One. It seems your concerns are following a blueprint that begins with the phrase, “It may not work out,” which is applied to the beginning of each caution you have so passionately projected. You write that “It may not work out, the project might run into an obstacle that cannot be overcome.” I appreciate you wanting to protect me, but your protection will only thwart my launch. For how will I find out the obstacles if I do not first set the project in motion? The answer is that I will find them when I get to them, and will overcome them at that time. I have secured professional advice on this matter, an “UNSTUCK Coach,” who will both encourage me and teach me applicable tools I can use along the way, tools you would discourage me from using, such as swapping out negativity with optimism, a foreign concept to you, and applying the 5-4-3-2-1 Rule to overcome second-guessing and assert myself into regular, positive, forward motion rather than stepping back in avoidance. Then there is self-validation and my own confidence in myself. I will be “putting myself out there’ in a place you avoid. And so I have replaced you with someone comfortable with this road. I am confident that with her support I will have the mental wherewithal to meet any of your concerns head-on.
Two. Rather than repeat the phrase, I’ll just use blah, blah, blah. We know what I am referring to. To quote you, then, “It may not blah, blah, blah, the project has been thought of already.” I agree the project has been thought of, it is always an inevitability. Pretty much everything has been thought of when you think of it. It’s not what has been thought of, it is what has been tried and followed through. The winners try and follow through. The losers think about it and at best wait at the start line - but most never bother to go to that line. I am a winner, so I have already crossed the line and am on the way. This time it is without you. I’m simply going to have to leave you behind.
Three. Blah, blah, blah again. “Amazon is just going to turn you away.” Well, you may be right about that, they might. I might decide not to take it to them, too, and in a distorted way that would surprise non-original thinkers, turn away from them. That is actually a tactic used by the dice throwers of the world to entice a bid, and I refer to dice as a metaphor for risk-taking start-up entrepreneurs or perhaps shrewd tacticians inciting a bidding war. Hint, Amazon is not the only big retailer on the internet.
And Finally. I am not discounting your part in my life, and in the preserving of it. This is a time, however, when I must put off the risk of failure and forge ahead, regardless of the consequences. It’s how we humans grow. There will be a place for you in my new, modernized city. A small, luxurious condominium, perhaps. My door will be shut more often than not, as I have new, risky ventures to pursue that you would not understand or feel comfortable with. Should I find myself charged by a large bear in the woods one day, or in a fierce storm on the open ocean, I may call for your services. And then you will be in your finest element.
Sincerely Optimistic,
Chris Plante