Zy Marquiez – Breakaway Consciousness

Blog Update: Book Release, Future Plans & More

“Life is a journey, not a destination.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
– Andre Gide

LifeJourney
BreakawayIndividual.com
Zy Marquiez
September 8, 2019

I will attempt to junction a few sets of circumstances that are taking place in a streamlined fashion for brevity’s sake, but given that I haven’t done an update on this blog given other person projects, this will meander a bit, so please be prepared for that.

First and foremost, I appreciate those of you on FB who have been asking me about the Blog, because that’s where this Blog is mostly shared in historically speaking. To clear that up, I have no intention of stopping this blog, nor my new one which deals with only writing and poetry with little sprinkles of life. The only reason I’ve put this on hold is because I have a lot going on between work, a few books I’m writing simultaneously, and many other things I haven’t said anything about but will so in the future.

As far as the book Amor Vincit Omnia – Love Conquers All is concerned, I have received a proof copy and I am going to proof read it the next few days a few times given how important the book is to me. Once that’s done, I’m undecided if I will order another proof copy, or just switch it from Private Access to Public Access for everyone given how sometimes Lulu has some serious glitches in formatting where certain lines align to the margins when they should be centered, and so on.

Moreover, one thing I plan on doing next year is begin my pursuit of publishing nonfiction research books into a variety of topics, and I have my first one narrowed down. I hope to publish perhaps 2 or 3 if possible, but I’m uncertain depending how much I do with poetry and anything else that might arise. That said I would love it if I can do one non-fiction book per quarter, but we will see. That might be admittedly biting of more than I can chew, but, I rather aim too high than sell myself short.

I also plan on publishing additional poetry books the rest of the year, but that will come in due time.

Years ago, when I envisioned me writing, I envisioned me jumping into nonfiction first, and poetry well after that, 5 or 10 years later in fact. Synchronistically enough, that didn’t happen, and I’m very glad. The reason for this is because my writing has grown to the point that I now know I can handle the workload of writing a nonfiction book along with other things, where as in the past not only did I lack the confidence but I also believe my writing wasn’t where I was comfortable with given the myriad books that I want to write.

This is one of the things that I appreciate about life, that sometimes it flips things upside down for you, and where you first thought it might be a negative circumstance, in fact, it instead works in your favor and you end up doing more because of it, and grow more there in.

I could go on about a few other things, but I’ll cut it here given how much meandering I have carried out. I do miss blogging on this Blog, and I have no intention on stopping this because of my plans for it. That said, I appreciate all of you who I’ve told to hang on a bit, and I also appreciate the inputs on some of the things I’ve ran by you all for this blog and so on. Thank you all so much for that.

You all have a wonderful evening.

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About The Author:

Zy Marquiez is an an author, business owner, CEO, avid book reviewer, inquirer, open-minded skeptic, and writer who aims at empowering individuals while also studying and regularly mirroring subjects like Consciousness, Education, Creativity, The Individual, Ancient History & Ancient Civilizations, Forbidden Archaeology, Big Pharma, Alternative Health, Space, Geoengineering, Social Engineering, Propaganda, and much more.

Book Announcement: Amor Vincit Omnia – Love Conquers All by Zy Marquiez | #Poetry #Prose #Love #Positivity #Writing #WritingCommunity #LoveConquersAll #AmorVincitOmnia #Books #NoctisBlackburn

AVO#1-1

BreakawayIndividual.com
Noctis Blackburn | Zy Marquiez
August 16, 2019

This is my formal announcement for a book that I’ve been working on for nigh two months. Given Zy Marquiez is my other pen name besides Noctis Blackburn, I am choosing to make an announcement here because of how much it means to me and because of how genuinely excited to I am to share this book.

As the above picture shows, the books name is Amor Vincit Omnia – Love Conquers All, which is a poetry book that I’ve put a lot of work and thought into for myriad reasons.

Now, the first point of the book is why I chose a color that’s mostly blue, with highlights of purple and so on, rather than something red? That’s a fantastic question that those that have known about the cover and have given me feedback have asked. One of the reasons for this is because this book is about Love Conquering All through all circumstances, and not just matters between two lovers. More importantly, though Love is usually ascribed the color red for obvious reasons, Love truly knows no boundaries, no colors.

As such, I thought it fitting to go with a more bluish/purple color scheme, rather than a reddish/purple/pink. Concurrently with that, red as Love is emblematic of Valentine’s Day, couples, romance, and such. And while Love between lovers is a part of this book, it’s not the only part of the book. I thought if I wrote the book from only that direction, it would leave a lot to be desired since Love affects all of us, no matter who we are, no matter whether we are in relationships or not, and so on. That said, nigh all the poems take a two person structure since I find it easier to write from that aspect, and I find it more beautiful as well. In conjunction with that, this book features the most amount of notations following well more than half the poems go extend the notion in many directions since human emotion is embedded deep within everyone and just leaving some poems without adding notations from them felt also incomplete since a romantic couple that seeks to do the right thing (or one person even) can still serve as a metaphor for a much more extensive view on Love.

Because of this, I opted to keep this color scheme because I like it a lot and everyone did as well, though they certainly wondered why bluish-purple rather than red/purple/pink and so on. Now, another vanguard consideration in this color scheme which is just as important as anything else is because a follow up to this book is already in the works, and given that that book is about love in the traditional sense with couples, romance, and so on, it’s going to follow a traditional Valentine’s Day-type color scheme, though I still have no conceptualized the cover or anything.

Likewise, I didn’t want to publish two books on Love with very similar color schemes because although Love is traditionally seen in red, as mentioned before, Love truly knows no boundaries nor colors. I would also like to make this part of a Trilogy, given that the first two books are covering important topics, although I believe the first one’s a lot more ‘objective’, while the second one is more ‘subjective’, I would still like to make it three books, although honestly I’m uncertain if I will be able to figure that out any time soon, so no promise there.

The final key consideration I want to discuss is why I chose the cover for this book. If you look at it carefully, you can see that the background is a heart that’s creation an explosion of resonance out of Love, which is essentially the reverse of a blackhole. Whereas a blackhole absorbs everything in sight leaving nothing left essentially, unconditional love is unconditional because it never stops, which I thought an incisive antithesis to something like a black-hole, which could mirror things that stem out of fear, hatred, and so on, which are important topics in the book. I put a lot of thought into all aspects of this book, and am still continuing to make sure to add some tidbits, but on the whole, the book is nigh complete and it’s almost ready to go. That said, it’s going to be around 2-3 weeks before it’s available to the public since I want to make sure that the book’s hardcover versions come out okay given that Lulu has some serious glitches when you uploading files

With everything previously discussed in mind, I would like to leave all of you with one final thought.

No matter where you are, who you are, what you do, and what you are going through, don’t ever forget that Love creates resonance, incredible resonance, and ultimately helps create the world you and all of us live in. The world truly becomes what we collectively create it to be and the power to do that should never be underestimated because each of us has way more power to change things than we often realize.

I could go on and on, but that’s the gist of it. I appreciate all of you taking time out of your day and reading this far.

Hope you all have a fantastic evening, and a phenomenal weekend! Take care of yourselves and be safe. Talk to you soon.

#Quote Of The Day | #Mindset | #Business | #Success

“Who you are tomorrow begins with what you do today.”
– Tim Fargo

5 Lessons From Owning & Operating Businesses In The First Year [Part 2] | #Business | #Finance | #Investing | #Growth | #Mindset

“Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful men and women keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.”
– Conrad Hilton

“Who you are tomorrow begins with what you do today.”
– Tim Fargo

Zy Marquiez
July 27, 2019

The previous write up discussed 5 lessons from the first year of business of my close friend and business owner Hussein Jabai and me. The lessons bellow will continue along the same lines with 5 additional thoughts that could prove valuable for those starting their own business.

#6: Know Your Customer Base

Are your primary customers middle-class consumers? Are they individuals concerned with health? Are they parents searching for entertainment options for their kids? Are they females? Males? Moreover, what’s the age range of your customers? Those two examples (of many) dovetail incredibly closely, for they allow you to know how to tailor your business model for your customers.

Social media analytics and other tools help with this. Figure out how to ascertain the demographics of your customer base, and you’re one significant step closer to success towards knowing whether your products will appeal simply to parents, techies, gamers, intellectuals, or any other type of individuals.

#7: Don’t Be Afraid To Go Against The Grain

Though Jabai’s business model and myself each go against the grain in their own ways, we will focus on what he is undertaking because the scope is much larger and intriguing.

Jabai is an individual who is in the discipline of health and wellness. For business, he could have simply stuck within the run-of-the-mill health and wellness strata of society, and found incredible success. But he’s in the process of expanding way beyond that. His passions are filtering not only into helping individuals with personal training, which he thoroughly enjoys, but into his Fighter Training Systems (FTTS Project), which aids in Injury Prevention for First Responders. But there’s more, he is also undertaking a personal initiative to create a program that strives for a much larger scale regional (and perhaps global reach) that could help individuals not just locally, but in various global regions.

The above example is the type of mindset that doesn’t settle simply for success, but reaches into making a difference, which is what ultimately changes lives.

#8: Always Strive To Continue Learning

Whether in life, business, personal relationships, or anything else, learning can take place reactively, or proactively. Though lessons in each can provide incredible depth, reactive lessons (and insights) are simply lessons that come when the tide brings them, whenever time provides them, rather than you venturing into the ocean to seek your own veritable treasure. In other words, you can wait for treasure to arrive on the shore of a beach brought about by waves, with that treasure brought to you, or you can venture into uncharted waters like a treasure hunter, and seek treasure of endless types. Self-directed education is one of the ways that individuals can find treasure within the field of business.

A wiseman once said, learning from your mistakes leads to knowledge, while learning from those of others, leads to wisdom. Always seek to learn from the footsteps provided from those before you, and even if you can’t because you happen to be doing something that’s brand new, you can still learn laterally from other individuals and their businesses in this respect.

In conjunction with that, one of the books that provided great insights into learning proactively is the book Small Business Marketing Kit For Dummies. This is an excellent crash course into possible avenues for individuals seeking how to expand their awareness of marketing, all the while offering pragmatic examples of what can be undertaken.

#9: Find (and Construct) Mutual Support Mindset Networks

It’s my estimation that the vanguard reason that Jabai and myself bonded so quickly wasn’t simply because we were business owners, but more importantly, our talks, whether business or personal, were based around the same type of mindset. Each of us employs a mindset that doesn’t simply seeks success, but seeks to go beyond that into creating something unique and far reaching.

Where I myself seek to help individuals express their creative desires through the medium of LEGO in multifarious way which helps bring people of all ages joy in countless ways, Jabai is seeking to help people well beyond the scope of individually tailored health.

Jabai doesn’t simply strive to stay in a comfort zone and be only a personal trainer, he seeks to expand his health and wellness business well beyond the scope that most people within the health and wellness area do.

While individuals can truly do most (or possibly all) things in life alone, one need not go at it alone when there are people of the same type of mindset out there, you simply need to find them and grow those relationships, whether it is in life or business.

Mutual mindset support networks aid in significant ways, from learning how to streamline your approach, having open-minded brainstorming sessions, to proactive seeking to not only to learn lessons from one another, but from others as well.

Each of us is seeking incredible distinct dreams, but with the mindset of empowering others, whether it is creatively or through health, and to buttress that with relentless passion to grow not only as a business, but as individuals as well.

#10 – Do Not Throw Away Time By The Wayside

Mincing no words, the average person spends time inefficiently by the truckload, it is a problem we all have, and its unfortunately a growing trend.

According to an article from New York Daily News penned a while ago, the average person spends 5 hours watching TV daily with some watching even more than that. At 5 hours per day, that amounts to 1,825 hours per year. That is 18250 hours per decade, and 91,250 hours per 50 years. That’s a lot of time! Over the course of 50 years, the total amount of time spent watching TV daily amounts to 3802 consecutive 24-hour days over that span. Or “just” 5 hours a day, for 50 years.

For the sake of simplicity, let us assume most of us happen to get 8 hours a day sleeping. In an entire 168 hour work-week where the average person spends 56 hours a week sleeping, and 40 hours a week working, that leaves one with 72 hours free. If one were to spend 35 hours a week viewing television, then that would leave 37 hours of free time. That’s nearly half of all of one’s available time spent watching television. That doesn’t even count social media! That seems ludicrous, does it not? That also doesn’t even begin to cover other activities individuals may carry out that don’t yield growth, whether in life or business.

Those are just some statistics of how much time is wasted, and there’s a lot more. The main point is that time is wasted by everyone including myself to varying extents. With modern media, it’s easy to spend countless hours on various apps and websites.

The best way to get around to creating time templates is simply to watch how much time you spend on social media and websites. There are apps that help with this. Once you do this, you will be downright shocked at how much time you spend on certain apps per week.

As you realize where those time vortexes of yours are, you will be able to adjust accordingly, hopefully slotting something productive in those areas like self-directed learning, business analysis and forecasts, etc.[1]

Final Thoughts

In modern times, success in business is not as complex as it was in the past. With the rise of the internet, social media and online social network, there are literally countless resources at hand, and a lot of those are free. However, if you can learn (proactively rather than reactively) from the mistakes and footsteps others took in a way that it can prevent you from making the same mistakes yourself, thus helping you forgo unnecessary hardship and time waste, you will be quite a few steps ahead of the competition.

Seek to push your business beyond the boundaries of comfort zones, but first, seek to push yourself beyond what you think you are capable of. What you do personally within your life, the mindset you employ, will inevitably seep into that of your business and your employees and will become the template for success in your future.

In life, individuals often surprise themselves of what they are capable of doing once they employ a can-do mindset, rather than a can’t-do mindset, and in business it’s not different.

Don’t wait upon the shores of life for treasures to come to you, veritable life insights that could also be applied to business; that is simply wasting time you could be using to venture on into the unknown seeking the treasures that life and business provide. And you never know, when seeking those very treasures, you might just run into a life-lesson or insight that changes your life forever.

One can’t put a price tag to life-altering life-lessons and wisdom that come about which help you not only in life, but in business as well. Those can only usually be attained by venturing beyond comfort zones.

Life happens to everyone, but unbounded success happens only to those that keep persevering beyond their comfort zones and into uncharted waters, even if they face a storm. And just like those storms within the seas help provide the circumstances that create master navigators able to steer their vessels in any way, within any storm, the metaphorical storms life and business provide will make you capable of navigating through various circumstances be them economic downturns, personal plight, or anything else.

Such is the mindset of a proactive individual; such is the mindset that makes unbounded success inevitable.

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Author’s Note:

[1] Time efficiency and inefficiency will be something discussed in the future and extrapolated upon at length given the incredible ramifications it has for business and success. This is only covered in this article in a cursory manner to give an individual a morsel of how significant time loss is within our lives.

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About The Author:

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#Quote Of The Day | #Mindset | #Business | #Success

“Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful men and women keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.”
– Conrad Hilton

3 Simple Ways To Streamline Organization | #Time | #TimeManagement | #GettingThingsDone

BreakawayIndividual.com
Zy Marquiez
July 18, 2019

Organization is something that many struggle with, including myself. With that in mind, I’ll discuss 3 different simple organizational mindset gems to be kept in mind.

#1 – 2-Minute Rule

The 2-Minute rule is a notion that I picked up in Getting Things Done by David Allen. Allen is an individual that’s created an organizational mindset in his book that seeks to do exactly what the book’s title is, get things done in a simple and yet streamlined fashion. Getting Things Done shines due to its simplicity, and although many of the tips and tricks Allen notes are common sense, many people struggle with the implementation of these organization mindset gems because they are treated as individual components to be added and discarded as such, rather than an entire organization mindset paradigm, which is incredibly different.

In any case, what’s the 2-Minute rule? Simply, this rule means that anything that can be done in 2-Minutes or less, should be done on a regular basis, at least once a day I would venture. This type of goal-setting can help decrease clutter, streamline organization, and will ultimately lead to a simple way of employing mindfulness when you least expect it [1].

#2 – Put Things Where They Belong In The First Place

This book This rule seems obvious, except almost everyone breaks it at least a couple of times a week, or like me, dozens, if not way more than that, particularly with my poem and writing which is all over the place from notebooks, journals, countless books, notes, index cards, and everything else you can think of [2]. If I can write on it, I will, and the organizational triage center that I lovingly call an “office” is merely a waypoint for destruction and chaos. Except when I employ this rule.

Though I am struggling with it at the moment, once yourmind set changes and it becomes automatic, you’ll do it effortless and not have to do twice the work, or even risk forgetting where you put your keys in the first place for instance?

Essentially, this rule follows loosely the adage: “Do it right once, or don’t do it at all.”

#3 – Employ Sticky Notes Often & Mercilessly

In Invisible Influence, Kevin Hogan does an exemplary job of showcasing the wide range of methods that can affect an individual’s sphere. The sticky note, or post-it note, is one of those outside-of-the-box social engineering bits most people wouldn’t consider social engineering, until you realize that such is obvious for the very basis behind the post-it note is to ‘engineer’ how you act towards a certain goal.

It’s use should not be underestimated, because (1) not only is it simple to employ, (2) it is cheap, but more importantly, (3) it works. Even so, it’s easy to forget, but if you make a habit out of it, much can be gained from

Those are three very easy ways to streamline organization, and the best part is that two of them are free and can save you hours a week if you implement, and oceans of stress you don’t have to deal with it when things are where they should be in the first place.

Do you struggle with organization at all? Would love to hear your thoughts on the matter! Feel free to comment below.

You all have a great evening.

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Author Notes:

[1] Getting Things Done, by David Allen.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Invisible Influence, by Kevin Hogan

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If you find value in this information, please share it. This article is free and open source. All individuals have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Zy Marquiez and BreakawayIndividual.com
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About The Author:

Poker, Writing & Life: Chasing Waterfalls, Chasing Dreams | #Poker | #Dreams | #Writing | #Life

BreakawayIndividual.com
Zy Marquiez
July 10, 2019

There are many moments in time in where you arrive at a fork in the road, and whether you realize it at the time or not, you have essentially two options: you can remain in the original direction you intended, in the original course of your bearing, or you head off elsewhere, plotting a new course in your ventures. Over ten years ago, I had circumstances that provided the canvas for very possibilities.

In the online poker space, which I played for a living for over ten years and is what was my main ‘career’ of choice until over a month ago, Poker Stars offered a player-program that was based out of the rakeback that the ‘house’ (Poker Stars) wins. [For clarification’s purposes, the way the casino guarantees itself profits from those playing poker, with every hand played that sees a flop, a certain percentage (that is capped at a certain amount) is kept by the house, and that’s how the casino makes money. In other words, it’s a small ‘tax’ (or fee) players pay to be part of the game.]

With that out of the way, Poker Star’s loyalty program was incredibly robust and easily the best in the game, which was one of the vanguard reasons they were the best online poker company by far. Though the name of the player program escapes me at the moment, the program essentially would guarantee players to earn a certain percentage of the money they themselves paid the house. It was Poker’s Stars version of a “tax return” if you want a lose analogy of it. Essentially, the more hands you played, the more money you ‘made’.

The strength of this program was that if you were able to log in an incredible amount of time and effort, you would be able to clear somewhere along the lines of $80-000 – $100,000+ year (with significant benefits as well), which was an opportunity of a lifetime, especially give that’s before your winnings. Yes, before winnings, you could still make that kind of money back then [1].

Anyone that played on Poker Stars had that option. All you had to do was make sure that you were playing in the right amount of games logging enough hands, which was admittedly obscene, but for the driven, very doable, and log an incredible amount of time playing the various form of poker games available. This is where the rubber meets the road.

I brought this idea up to my significant other at the time, and told her that it’s an incredible opportunity, and one that shouldn’t be overlooked given how such an opportunity (even playing only a handful of years) could really set someone (or a couple) financially up for the rest of their life.

Anyways, after endless debates and considerations, I relented to the fact that it was best not to do that, given that we agreed (although in my case, it was tentatively, and I will get to that in a moment) that it was more important at the time for the relationship. In hindsight, even though I think it might be seen, or even objectively be selfish, I believe that what would have been best for the relationship would have been to sacrifice a bit of personal time, in order to set the future up nicely. The future is what it’s all about, right? At least, that’s what I thought about then and still ponder at length now. And though I do realize you ‘only’ live in the moment, to pretend tomorrow will never come is like pretending you need not eat food now because you know you can’t be hungry later because all you have is now.

Even so, at the time, the choice we made seemed tenable, though it still irks me that I didn’t do that, especially since I was working at home, which was the main strength of playing online poker, because any one in that instance could always take breaks by themselves, or with acquaintances, friends, family, significant others, lovers, etc. How many other jobs in the world allow that amount of latitude and freedom?

But that wasn’t the case. Had it been a traditional job, where you spend time away from home, I wouldn’t have regretted the idea at all. But the choices were made and now we are here.

I bring this about because during those times, poker was job, but more importantly my passion, so to not be able to chase it to the fullest extent of the opportunity always left me feeling like I left a piece of myself in the past that I will never be able to get back.

Fast forward to the present, now we get to writing.

Currently, I’ve already made a choice that, regardless of where my path as an individual heads towards in life, I will continue writing since it is my main passion. But where as in Poker I wasn’t able to test the limits of my passions, in writing I will not do that, I couldn’t live myself if I followed that course. I could not sacrifice a passion, a dream of that magnitude again, without looking back at the end of my life without feeling like I didn’t live life to the fullest, even if we’re only talking about it through the lens of writing.

Now, what makes this matter even more interesting from a variety of angles is that, wherein Poker I had to do it for an income (whether I liked it or not), with writing I don’t have to do that.

I can write when I want, how I want, where I want, for whatever purpose I want, to accomplish whatever goal I wish to accomplish and all around the parameters that I set upon myself. This freedom (and passion) is definitely something that I don’t take for granted given that it’s allowed me not only to be able to live life in a more meaningful and much wider range than in the past, but in a way that is even more fulfilling than I ever thought possible.

Concurrent with that, the bonus is that because I’m not doing it as a career, I don’t have to worry about any of my writing ‘paying the bills’ through that passion, which allows me the freedom of expression and choice that I would otherwise had if I had come through writing from a more traditional vantage point.

These considerations are born about because I find it highly intriguing how often I converse with people on myriad subjects where they are passionate about hobbies (or possible dreams) and so on, though usually not in a I-want-to-make-a-living-out-of-this sort of way, but in a passionate way nonetheless, and I see people, give up on something they are passionate about because they just don’t see it as ‘possible’. I can definitely empathize with such instances given how I myself followed this course a few times, though not necessarily for these very reasons.

Be that as it may, this is the type of mindset that holds individuals back, and I think most individuals are familiar with some part of this spectrum, and it’s something that serve no purpose but to anchor an individual upon the sea of regret for the rest of their lives.

Thankfully, life has kicked my rear end enough, and I have made enough mistakes to realize what it is I truly want to follow through with, and at least it didn’t take as long as I thought it would for me to realize this.

Yes, no passion that you wish to take to the fullest extent, or at least, to a far-reaching range is easy to follow through with, nay. But if you truly want something you are passionate about, sometimes you just need to jump into the deep end of life and begin swimming.

Either way, I know that 50 years from now, irrespective of where writing takes me, I won’t have the regret of not having followed through with my passion for writing, as I know I will have when I look back having played online Poker. And for that perspective, I am definitely thankful.

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Notes:

[1] In full disclosure, I believe that the amount of money that could be made had a wider range than the one mentioned, but either way, it was enough to make a comfortable living by average middle-class income standards.

[2] I apologize for the lack of content on the blog; I’ve been busy on a few different things I will discuss in the next few weeks, and also dealing with some health issues at the moment. Nothing serious, but I just don’t want it to get as such, so I just need to take care of myself. That said, I still plan on uploading content of a wide scope here, I just wanted to do a small update on why there hasn’t been much the last few weeks.

[3] This piece was written with the thoughts that even if it doesn’t seem feasible at all, sometimes it doesn’t hurt to truly consider how complex or truly complicated chasing a dream or a passion is. If thought about open-mindedly on paper, sometimes certain things aren’t as complicated, or as simple, as they may be at first blush, but consideration of them at least allows for the true scope of the issue to be grasped, rather than think that you can’t do it because x, y or z reasons.

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