Success is like a Cafe

So I talk about failure a lot, peeps know I'm obsessed with it. It is my mistress I court at every corner. But what of it's twin sister - Success?

I was sitting in a very nice cafe today, the name of which I don't know and it was so nice I kind of thought it would be a nice life, running a cafe. I don't know shite about coffee it's true, nor could I make good muffins or sandwiches and whatever. But seriously, having your business as a nice relaxing place for people to unwind would provide one with a nice relaxing place to work.

Anyway, I thought 'Success is like a cafe.' And maybe it isn't. I don't know what I'm saying...




Now I remember, success could be like a cafe, but really what I'm talking about is the vague and abstract concept of 'making it' that is the breakthrough. I've been told in any creative pursuit you are a pro when you don't actually have to do anything else to support yourself. That is you are a writer when you tap out a story or article from time to time and don't serve coffee at Starbucks to pay the rent. (it just occured to me that I know a writer literally doing this, fortunately he's probably too busy with starbucks to read my blog). You are a musician when you earn money from blowing on the end of a tuba and not when you give lessons to some fat kid from private school. You are an artist when you go to your studio and paint a rotting fish still life and sell it for your years wages, not when you go to a call center and conduct computer assisted telephone interviews for the collation of statistical data.

Thus the concept of 'making it' through this frontier has tremendous appeal. Anyway I'm going to stop explainanating and just talk about cafe's now.

If you are some kind of creative, you want to be the cool cafe. The hidden secret place to chill out. You just want to be a good cafe, that makes good coffee.

BUT you want people to find out about you and flock to you every lunchtime and pay your mother fucken rent by loading up on lattes. You want to be successful.

You could once successful, buy out your neighbours and put on more staff and service more customers. You could get an electronic cashier, you could have a seperate staff member for ordering and paying and pay somebody else to be your barista and send them to official barista competitions.

Or you could just keep being that cool cafe you always wanted to be. You can't service your demand, but you are doing what you love. You won't get all the customers you can, but you will keep all the customers you can handle. That is, no matter how many people hear about this cool cafe, this great atmosphere, you just keep being what you wanted to be. You get some money, not perhaps as much money as you can wring out of the short term, but you get it and you get to keep the atmosphere, the vibe you wanted to create.

That's mother fucken success. Success is like a cafe.