Means To An End?

My life is really warped and strange.  Not because I am abused to violated or anything like that, because I’m not.  Not because I am into dark, evil things like shrunken heads, skulls, black widows, or only leaving the house at night–I’m not.  My life is really strange because I have so many directions I would like to pursue and can only do so one at a time.  This means my other pursuits suffer and have to wait–feeling like they are dying inside of me.

I guess I should have known that I wasn’t going to be the average kid growing up.  Hell I had my dad buy me some General Electric stock for my 9th birthday.  If that wasn’t a warning sign, then I don’t know what is.  My problem right now is that I don’t have a problem.  I am not oppressed, not segregated, not held back financially or mentally (other than by myself), I don’t struggle for anything, there is food on the table and in my stomach, I can lay my head down and not worry about if I am going to wake up.

GE Stock Performance

You might look at that and say that my problem is a lack of self motivation.  And I would respond, yes and no, I am very self motivated, but when the going gets tough, I tend to become more motivated to bail or move on to something else.  This is a problem, and one that I can not address outright because once I quit something, I want to take it back up again.

Take computer science for example–my first intended major–I got out of that because I didn’t want to sit behind a desk all day hacking out code for something that wouldn’t be appreciated.  I also didn’t like the long hours that I would have to put in each week on homework.  But now that I don’t do that anymore, I am so frustrated and curious about it because I can’t program for the web in a way that I think I should.  But that project is essentially on hold.

Right now I am studying business.  Will I get my major in business?  I don’t know.  I am already looking at three and a half years of school on top of the year that I already put in–if I am to get my degree in business.  But while I study macro economics, marketing, and accounting, my mind wanders back to computers–code implementation, design, layout, digital photography, graphics, et cetera.  And then I get confused about where I need to go.

To me studying business is a means to an end.  And I know that I don’t need to get a degree in business to do what I want to do–I just need a solid foundation, a good understanding to get the ball rolling.  I don’t really want to work for a business as an accountant, a marketer, sales person or some sort of analyst.  I want to do my own thing and hire those people.  I want to free up my time.

But obviously, I need to make money to start businesses and keep my head above the water.  To do this I would much rather have a career in digital media or photography or something that I enjoy.  When I see websites like Really Japan or Playgroundblues, my mind starts taking them apart piece by piece.  I start thinking about the div layouts and how images are placed.  Then I start to give up because they become too sufisticated.  This screams to me that I need to study this more or pursue this in college so I have an understanding of website infrastructures, how to use jQuery, and coding in languages like PHP and Ajax.

Photo from Real Japan

But the same thing happens with business. I start to realize what it takes to run a business and when I see places like McDonalds, body shops, or retirement homes, pieces just start coming apart.  I see the marketing–signs in windows, fliers, commercials–I see the customers buying the product–burgers or mufflers or the room they stay in–I see operational expenses–rent, employees, maintenece, products that have to be purchased so they can be resold to the consumer–I see the balance sheets being made, et cetera.  It all starts coming together.

The thing that scares me is whenever my mind can start taking things apart like that, it means I am really interested.  Right now there are at least three areas–for me–in which this happens.  Business, websites, and to a lesser degree, Spanish (the language).  But if I was to study everything to its fullest extent, I would be in school forever-ever.

I guess that is why I am studying business at the moment.  To me it is a means to an end.  Something that I can invest time into right now, start investing and then start to minimize my involvement until I have other people running the show for me.  Granted I will step in to make important decisions and to start new things or contribute new ideas, but I want to be the owner not the manager. I want my time to do with what I will.

To me the big question is how far do I have to follow through with my studies?  I feel as if I got to intermediate business courses and then switched my major to digital media while investing and working on the side, I would be able to make it.  This is the means to then end.  Still fuzzy, still unsure about which path I am going to take after business, but I know I don’t want to sit behind a desk.

Screenshot from Playgroundblues