When You Hitch Your Wagon to Someone Else’s Star
Posted: Monday, November 01, 2010
by Terry Mitchell
http://commenterry.blogs.com
Too many times in my life, I've had the painful experience of being left twisting in the wind. That's because I made the mistake of hitching my wagon to someone else's star, so to speak. One of the problems with this, of course, is that while I can be sure of what I'm going to do (at least in those situations in which I am able to control my own destiny), I can never be sure of what someone else is going to do. The other major problem is the possibility is that the other person my die or become disabled.
During my summers as a child, I enjoyed playing pick-up softball games with my brothers and the other kids from the neighborhood. Very often, though, I would have my heart set on playing a certain game to completion, only to have some of the other kids start fighting after a few innings, resulting in most of the players walking off the field and the game abruptly ending. That kind of thing would always leave me bitterly disappointed and looking for something else to occupy my time.
I also enjoyed vacations when I was growing up, but since my parents didn't have a car, my family and I were dependent on friends and relatives to take us where we wanted to go. As you can probably guess, we were often left disappointed by a vacation cancelled due to someone pulling out on us at the last minute. I didn't buy first car until I was 22 (due to lack of funds), so even as a young adult, I was often grounded or left stranded by those I was depending on for transportation. That definitely taught me the importance of having one's own means of transportation.
In regard to the second problem, I can fully accept the fact that, when I die, my goals and dreams might also die. Besides, when I'm dead, I won't need them anymore. But if they are dependent on someone else, they could die when that person dies, which could happen many years before my number is called. To me, that would be devastating.
This year, I began purchasing a series of income-producing websites from a guy who originally offered to host them free on his own hosting account for life! However, since I fully expect these websites to eventually make it possible for me to retire early, I began to wonder what would happen if he died or became mentally incapacitated (such as the result of a major stroke).
What, then, would happen to those websites that I'm depending on for my retirement income? Would his wife, son, daughter, brother, sister, close friend, etc. have access to his account? Even if they did, would they acknowledge my ownership of those websites or just assume that he owned them? What if they unknowingly closed the account or let it expire before I could get my stuff out? Yikes! After considering these frightening questions, I politely declined his hosting offer and requested that he install the sites on my own hosting account upon the completion of each purchase.
So the bottom line is this: When you decide to pursue an important goal or dream, make sure that, whenever possible, the outcome is completely dependent upon you, and no one else.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)I think that was a very wise and sane decision. I've often hitched my star to somebody else's wagon (I like the way you put it) and suffered for it.Hi Jennifer, thanks for reading and commenting. In today's world, we just have to be cautious about putting too many of our eggs in someone else's basket, as you have discovered.
Terry, well said.There's only 1 person you can depend on. That's you.There does appear to be, nowadays, too much reliance on others. Maybe its because people don't want the responsibility for their own actions?Bill, thanks for reading and commenting. You may have a point there.Terry, I do think I have a valid point.
The 'compensation culture' is the main reason I believe people don't take responsibility for their own actions or mistakes.
It's too easy to blame someone else and claim the cash, and the justice system should shoulder its share of the blame for allowing it to proliferate.
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