Reflecting on my first few weeks after I left my corporate gig

I remember my intention to keep the fact that I left my job a complete secret. On the weekend of my last day, which was a Friday, I went to a buddy of mine's place where he and his wife were giving a big Smokefest Party. I went over there on Saturday morning. It was a big party with a lot of my other friends showing up to smoke their ribs and drink beers. We had a great time. I brought my guitar and was excited about my prospects for starting my online biz and I even had my website up with the pic of me holding my electric guitar.

Now as I reflect, the funniest part of this party was when a few folks, new to me, were introduced to me and they would ask what I did for work. I had already told my closest friends such as my buddy and his wife holding this party that I was working on getting my guitar lessons biz online. In fact, I had shared this idea of mine and told them I was building my website on more than one occasion before this big party.

So I freely told anyone and everyone who asked me what I did for work that I taught blues guitar online. My friends looked at me askance because as far as they knew this wasn't really something I was doing full-time yet and as far as they believed I had a corporate job and that was what I should be telling people I did for work. Even funnier was the reaction I received from most everyone I told this. They all asked me "but what do you do for money?" "you know, how do you pay the bills?" As if they knew that there was no way, even if it was true that I was teaching blues guitar online that I was making money on it and if I was making money on it, at least they seemed confident that I certainly wasn't making enough money to pay my bills. So they needed to know 'what did I really do?!' LOL! (Yes, As I write this post, this makes me laugh out-loud).

Later that evening when I pulled my guitar out to play for everyone, one of my other buddies exclaimed to me "Hey, wait!" Did you lose your corporate job? Is that why you're telling everyone around here you teach guitar online?" I lied to him and said "no" that wasn't the case and asked him how the hell did he get that idea from me just bringing my guitar out to play?

He said, "As far as I know, you always told people about your 'corporate job', after all didn't you go back to school for your Master's degree for 2 years so you could get a promotion with these guys?" "Why would you say you teach people to play guitar online?"

I guess the old saying still goes,"You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time." Which, did you know according to this web site, Abraham Lincoln DID NOT SAY! http://isp.netscape.com/whatsnew/package.jsp?name=fte/lincoln/lincoln
Here's the story on this saying: This was thought to be part of a speech Lincoln gave in September 1858 in Clinton, Illinois, but the line is not included in the text that was printed in the local newspaper. It was attributed to Lincoln in 1910 when two people remembered hearing him say it in 1856--54 years later.

Read the whole site, it's really interesting how different sayings got attributed to Lincoln. But for one more, here is a really good one! "There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There's nothing good in war except its ending."
This was said by an actor playing Abraham Lincoln in an episode of "Star Trek." Lincoln himself never said this.