committment

Last Saturday I held one of my semi-annual stoop sales. My friend Claire, my tenant Nanci and I are famous for our sales—we have repeat customers, sell good stuff and make good money. The difference this year was that I sold a lot my nice work clothes. I didn’t realize what was going on at the time—I just wistfully watched as some of my favorite skirts dresses and shoes (marc jacobs!) marched off with new owners while I pocketed a fraction of what the stuff had originally cost.

It was today that I realized what I had done: I had committed myself to this business. The fact is, I love clothes and one of my favorite aspects of going to the office was getting dressed for it. I’m also a collector of clothes (part of the fun of dressing up is the whole mix and match bit and you need a lot of options, right?) so parting with many perfectly fine pieces for $10 or $20 each didn’t make any sense. Generally I sell clothes that don’t flatter or fit me but Saturday I parted with items that did. I just cleaned out.

I read something recently about starting your own business. It said that to be successful you must totally invest yourself: get the business cards, do the web site, stop sending your resume out for jobs, etc. I don’t have business cards yet and as of this writing my site isn’t up but I think I made my own mental committment this week.