Just Visiting This Planet

The reason why I get up every morning and go into work, the reason why I do what I do, and have done for more than half of my lifetime, has nothing to do with the company for which I work. Or the entire music retail industry as a whole. I do what I do because I love what I do. I truly, genuinely do.

My systems are set to a single function: To help people have access to the music that they want, and to also hopefully introduce them to something that they might enjoy.

I don't clock in every day hoping that I make a lot of money, although certainly it would be nice. But if I was looking to make money I'd be doing something else, and would have been doing something else from the very beginning.

I don't struggle to line the pockets of the CEO. Or to climb the ladder myself, in hopes that some other poor schlub out there struggles to line mine. Being rich is undoubtedly a cozy prospect. But being merely set for life isn't necessarily a life.

I do what I do because I live to hear that squeal of excitement when that girl finds that rare, out-of-print CD in our used section that she has been searching for since she was twelve years old. To see the smile spread across the face of a boy who listens to a new band that I helped him discover, and finds himself resonating strongly with it. The man who joyfully, tearfully finds the perfect song to dance to with his daughter at her wedding. The small child who spins across the room in ecstasy, clutching the beloved album that will provide the soundtrack to her young life.

I just want to take account of my feelings on all of this, to put it out there, and explain who I am and what motivates me, and why I do what I do whenever somebody enquires.

Because from here on out, if something happens to my job, or to my position, or if for some reason I wind up losing everything I had worked so hard for over the last four years alone, I want somebody -- anybody out there to know that everything I did, I did it all for you.