Monday, March 9, 2015

My List of Failures

I took an un-announced break from blogging because I was basically feeling sorry for myself. 

Here's my list of failures. 

In 2005 I signed up to sell BeautiControl, which if you know me and my lack of makeup-applying skills, you may find hard to believe. You will no doubt find it easier to believe that after five or so parties, I hung up on that dream of getting rich. 

Next I got this cleaver idea to sew pillows with pockets (the next best thing after blankets with sleeves, right?). I sold a few to people I know, but the Etsy store and the craft shows went nowhere. 

I returned to my childhood dream of writing, wrote my memoir, then found a publisher in 2012. They even published two more of my books the following two years. As is the tread in publishing right now, marketing of my books was quite a bit on my own. Again, I feel that I have failed there.  

A fourth endeavor, which this time I am not in alone, is the nonprofit organization which my daughter Val started in 2013. The two of us have tried promoting Tumaini Volunteers through various venues, but yet again, I feel that we haven't gotten anywhere. 

I can trace all of this failure to my fourth year of college. I was majoring in mass communications, with - of all things - a concentration in marketing and public relations! Can you just even believe it? 

Hopefully you will believe what happened next. God sent me a clear and distinct sign that I should drop out of college. Seriously. So I did. Good thing, I think. Years later, God sent me to a community college with a medical assisting program and that's how I ended up where I am today. Without any marketing expertise, and some statistics to support that. 

So, where do I go from here? I still use BeautiControl products for my own personal use, coz I like the stuff. I still sew and am working on quilt squares for a quilt for my own personal use. I've got three books for sale on Amazon.com (and a box of each of them in my closet). Someday I may have to read again all those words I wrote. And lastly my daughter and I are still plugging away on Tumaini, trying to finish writing our business plan, trying to raise some money, and trying to scare up some more volunteers for both here at home and to go to Kenya. 

I kinda want to leave it all on God's plate to deal with, but He has enough stuff on His plate already. But I've heard His plate is pretty big...  

If you want to help God out, here are the websites you can go to: 




Like them, share them, comment on them, open your wallet. Or not. 

2 comments:

The Great Dondeen said...

Urg! I just wrote up a whole bunch of stuff to respond to this entry...but when I tried to preview it, it vanished.

SIGH
So you aren't the only one failing at life.

Chris Loehmer Kincaid said...

Hey, thanks for the comment. Maybe it is just that time of year or that time in our lives for failure. I try telling myself that "this too shall pass". In the meantime, I will get out of bed every morning and do what I have to do.

Thanks for getting your comment posted even if it wasn't everything you wanted to say.