Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.
–-John Updike, Self-Consciousness: Memoirs (1989)
It’s another Small Business Saturday, that Saturday after Thanksgiving when people are urged to go out into their communities and shop in locally owned small businesses. It’s one of the best ways to keep your local community vibrant and alive. The money spent for the most part stays local and multiplies many times as it radiates out into the community.
It can be a huge economic engine for the small businesspeople in your local area.
But it is also something more– it is the sustaining lifeblood for a multitude of dreams. Every local small business represents the fulfillment of a dream of someone in your area. It required that someone believed in an idea or ability that they possessed and then risked something– often everything– in putting themselves out there in front of their friends and neighbors.
It can be a gigantic gamble where failure can sometimes mean financial ruin, public humiliation, and lifelong dreams being forever crushed.
But you can look at that risk as the only chance you might get at following your dreams. A chance to finally be the person you once imagined yourself being. Even the humblest small business is the realization of a dream for someone.
And anyone’s dream is a big deal, in my opinion.
I am an artist and a small businessperson, as is every working artist and artisan. We don’t like to talk about it as a business, of course, but after the making of the art it is that thing that keeps our dreams alive. Our dreams and our livelihoods depend on people dealing with us or the local shops and galleries that carry our work– all small businesses.
Small but consequential.
Every gallery I work with provides income for at least 50-80 artists and artisans. That’s 50-80 dreams fulfilled in each gallery.
And, again, that’s a big deal.
I’ve been extremely fortunate to have my dream kept alive for the past 28 or so years. And I have those dream-enablers at the galleries that represent me as well as the many of you out there who have supported my work to thank for that. As much as I might like to think I achieved anything on my own, my dream has been dependent on so many people.
Like anyone with a dream of following their passion, it has meant the world to me. I would love to see many others achieve their own unique dreams in the same way.
So, help them out if you can. I am not asking you to buy locally as a charitable act. View it as more of an investment in your neighbors and your community and an act of humanity in that you are feeding someone’s dream. Whatever you might purchase from a small local business — be it a painting, a cup of coffee, a piece of clothing or pottery, a cupcake, or any of the many things made and sold in your area–is your first dividend on that investment. It is money well spent.
And to those of you out there with a dream who have yet to find the nerve to take the leap, I urge you to follow your dreams. Sure, it might be hard and you might fall on your face. That’s a given. But keep in mind that there is always the possibility of achieving your dream only if you take that leap.
You don’t want to be one of those people who go through life saying, “What if?” At least if you fail, you have the chance to chase another dream.
That is, of course, a perfect segue into a song from Bruce Springsteen. In the early 1980’s, Bruce often performed his take on the Elvis Presley title song from his 1962 movie, Follow That Dream. He slowed the tempo and it was barely discernible as the same song. A few years later, he altered it even more, changing the lyrics and chorus to the point that it basically a different song that he still performs occasionally. But in both, he still delivers the same message from the original in a potent way. The rendition below is from a live performance at Wembley Stadium in June of 1981.
FYI: The painting at the top is titled Endless Possiibility. I think it goes well with today’s subject of following your dreams. It is available at one of my favorite small businesses, the West End Gallery. If you’re in Corning on this Small Business Saturday, please stop in and take a look around.
Redtree Times 