Strong Enough
“But he would want you to do what would make you happy, right?”
“Not necessarily.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
“The thing is,” he went on, “I’ve been thinking. Ever since you asked me if my job was my passion, it’s been bothering me that it isn’t. There’s nothing about it that inspires me. Nothing creative or meaningful. I make good money, and I’m good at making deals, but it’s not fulfilling in a way that working on my house was. And I see you coming here all fired up about chasing a dream and kind of wish I had something like that. It’s inspiring.”
The idea that anything about me inspired him was beyond crazy. “And I look at you and everything you’ve done, all the beautiful things you have, your home, your car, all your success, and I think, ‘That’s what I aspire to be.’”
“There’s more to life than a home and a nice car. Those are only things. I feel like…” He shook his head. “I don’t even know what the fuck I’m trying to say. I guess I feel like I’ve lived a very safe life. It’s comfortable for sure, and I’m grateful for everything I have, but I haven’t taken very many risks. I’m starting to think that matters.”
“So take one now. It’s not too late.”
He slowed down and leaned toward me to peer out the passenger side window. “It’s that one. With the Spanish Revival architecture.”
I looked at the white house with the red tile roof. “It’s nice.”
“It was built in 1925 and still has a lot of the original features. But it’s in pretty rough shape.”
It was? Other than an overgrown lawn and some missing roof tiles, I didn’t think it was that bad, but Derek’s standards were different than mine. “Can we go inside?”
“Not today. I didn’t make an appointment.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. “Traffic coming. Gotta move.”
With one last glance at the house, he pulled forward. “I wanted to be an architect once upon a time.”
“You did?” I looked at him in surprise.
“Yeah. But my dad said there was way more money in property development and I should go to business school.”
“So you went to business school.”
“Yes.”
“If you could go back, would you do it differently?”
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly as he thought. “Hard to say.”
“Is it too late?”
He laughed a little. “Yes. I’m not going back to school now. But if there’s a way I can flex that creative muscle a little and turn a profit at the same time, I’d jump in. Maybe.”
“Do you think you can turn a profit on that house?”
“Yes,” he said confidently. “They’re asking too much, but I could get the price down. It will still be expensive as fuck, but I have experience in financing real estate, a lot of knowledge about property in this area, and I’m not in a rush. I’d take my time and do it right.”
“It sounds like you’ve given this a lot of thought, and not just in the past few days.”
“It’s something I’ve thought about for a while,” he admitted as we turned into the parking lot at the mall. “I guess you reminded me of it.”
“Why do you think you haven’t done it yet?”
“Well, fear, for one thing. Making money isn’t guaranteed. And houses around here aren’t cheap, even the shitty ones. I didn’t want to get in over my head. I’ve seen it happen where guys tried to move too fast or hired the wrong people or made bad decisions or totally underestimated costs, and before they knew it, the project was completely out of control and they lost everything.” He pulled into a parking space and turned off the car. “I don’t want to be that guy. I don’t want to fail.”
“Derek. Trust me. You are not that guy.” I wish I had more words to convince him to take the risk, because it was obviously something that would make him happy. “I know we haven’t known each other that long, but I truly believe that anything you did, you’d do it right. Go see the house, and see what your gut tells you.”
He looked over at me and smiled. “Because your gut is never wrong.”
“Exactly. Your gut is like the universe telling you what to do.”