BitterSuites

I didn’t buy a franchise today. Let me be very clear about that. 

But I was sorely tempted to investigate it and consider it and even weigh it against the financial goals that I’ve got. 

It was an estate sale business and it includes mailing lists. And websites. And employees. It’s a well-established name and it has the functionality for bidding that means it will thrive even in the current COVID climate. 

I’ve been to their sales and I’m on their mailing list. I’ve run downsizing sales and resale is one of the things I love. (Seriously, ask anyone and they’ll tell you that I love turning a profit on small things and not so small things. That early in 2021 I was trying to make a go of this exact type of thing.)

And yet, I walked away without even asking for more information. I walked away because if I didn’t, I would have put myself into a frenzy trying to figure out how to afford it. Or be willing to pull the trigger without really thinking about it rationally. I deleted the email that offered it because if I had responded and asked for more information, I wouldn’t have thought too much about why to get it and not enough about why I should walk away. 

And I should walk away. I have enough to do in my life. I don’t need one more thing to divide my attention. I’ve been working diligently to sell things on, to clean things up, to make room, to prepare for the inevitable downsizing, and to work off my debts. 

I recently turned 45. That means I’ve got thirty to forty years left. I have books to write and short stories to pass on. I have non-fiction catalogs and a biography I haven’t even started to touch. I have a death pile for eBay that’s the size of a small (large) storage unit and a half dis-assembled piano to use for art prints and strange sounds to make. I have dollhouses to renovate and miniatures to assemble. And forty years is not enough. 

I have to safe-gaurd my future. 

And to do that, I had to not buy a franchise today.