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My first thought? One I didn’t write.

I know that’s probably not what the question was looking for. I’m supposed to name some book where everything’s terrible and explain why I wouldn’t want to live there.

But I kept coming back to the same thing. I wouldn’t want to live in a world where somebody else had already written my part.

Maybe that explains a few things about me.

I’ve always been self-employed. Done my own thing. Had my own ideas about how I wanted to work and live. And yeah, that has probably made some things harder than they needed to be.

I can admit that.

Sometimes there’s a perfectly good path sitting right in front of me, and I still need to figure out whether it’s actually the path I want to take. “That’s how everybody does it” has never been enough of a reason for me.

I need to understand it. Believe in it. Make the decision myself.

I’m sure that can be frustrating for other people. Sometimes it’s frustrating for me.

But I know what it feels like to get up and go do something because I chose it. Even when it’s hard. Even when the money isn’t there yet. Even when I’m the one who has to figure out how to make it work.

There’s something about that ownership that matters to me.

I don’t want to spend my whole life waiting for instructions. Go here. Do this. Want that. Keep doing it because that’s what you’re supposed to do.

At some point, I have to ask: Who decided this was my life?

And did I ever actually agree to it?

That doesn’t mean I have everything figured out. Being self-employed doesn’t magically make every decision a good one. I’ve made plenty of my own bad calls, and being the guy who made them means I get to deal with the consequences.

You don’t get to claim all the freedom and then pass off all the responsibility.

If I want to choose my direction, I have to own where those choices take me. And when something isn’t working, I have to be willing to change it.

Life throws things at you, too. Things you never asked for and sure as hell wouldn’t have put in your own book. I don’t believe I can control every circumstance or decide what everybody around me is going to do.

But I can decide how I respond. I can look at where I am and choose my next move.

That’s enough reason to keep writing.

So I don’t have a fictional world to nominate today. My answer is the one that came to me before I had time to overthink it.

The worst book to live in would be one I didn’t write.

I want a life I recognize as mine. Work I chose. Goals I believe in. Mistakes I can learn from. And room to change my mind as I go.

I don’t know exactly how the whole story turns out.

But I’m keeping the fucking pen.

— Nicholas Francis
Modern Day Dealer
NFAFinance.com