It was a morning that heart attacks are made of.
Bitterly cold with rain that could be best described as a miserable heavy drizzle. The sun had not yet made it over the horizon to brighten up the top of the rain cloud blanket.
The figures at the bus stops were barely discernable. Grey shapes with umbrellas against grey houses and pavements, limply illuminated by sickly yellow sodium street lights. And it was Monday. The first day of the working week.
The bus driver was a different story. Relentlessly eccentric, laughing at a world that takes itself far too seriously. He had decorated his bus with stuffed toys of all colourful varieties, a lioness, a gorilla in a RAP outfit, a clown fish, a puppy dog in a fireman's hat. In a plastic ice cream container taped to his change counter he offered free lollies for his passengers and wore on his head a hat in the shape of a pink pig. The dismally damp Monday morning commuters could not help but smile when confronted with this theatre of the absurd. Folding their soggy umbrellas they fumble with frozen fingers to find money or season tickets.
As I watched the shadowy grinding traffic and listened to the hiss of tyres on wet tarmac, it struck me. Why on earth am I doing this to myself? Why is anyone doing this to themselves?
The truth is that we have gotten used to this way of life over the centuries, ever since the Luddites failed to stop the inexorable march of the industrial revolution. The factory or office and technology became more important than human beings or quality of life. It was this that the Luddites were actually opposed to. Technology that enslaved humanity rather than adding to what it was to be human. So here we are a couple of centuries down the tarmacadam and we now accept as normal the concept of going somewhere away from home and family to exchange time for money in order to survive. A total dependance on some one elses business and self interest for survival.
A plague on this 19th century poverty mindset. I needed to take control of my life. Live how I want to live, relying on my own talents and initiative. Stop travelling on buses on dark wet Monday mornings.
I'm not quite sure how it came about, but I found myself in the possession of Stone Evans's E-book 'Dotcomology'. And there was the answer. Start internet marketing.
The book taught me about making an attractive website, gave me some ideas about what business to run on the internet, showed me how to use search engines, taught me about email marketing, affiliate programs, joint ventures, viral marketing and even how to manage life when you work from home. And what's more the book was free! 324 pages packed with information and ideas. Not only that, the book invited me to sign up for a free web page already loaded with afilliate sites and other money generating products. So, believing that nothing happens by accident, I joined up and I am now the proud owner of http://www.nowisagoodtime.com , http://www.my-alternative-medicine.com, a blog and several published articles, (with more on the way).
The internet is, in effect, the next revolution. Most interestingly it enables those who are willing to embrace it, a chance to return to the idyllic days of a pre-industrial revolution lifestyle with broadband and enjoy what the weavers had.
And what an enviable way of life it was. Picture this, (please go to iTunes download and play 'Morning' from the Peer Gynt Suite), a cottage in the bucolic English countryside. Butterflies flit from colourful flower to colourful flower whilst the birds sing sweetly in the lush green trees by the babbling brook. Inside the cottage the weaver is contently finishing his latest creation destined for the markets of Europe and because the price of his goods never changes, he knows how much he will be paid. His wife and children are happily helping him in his tasks. Pausing to refresh himself from his labours, he wanders out into the garden to check on the progress of the spinach, pulls a few weeds out of the potato patch and throws the chickens some food left over from the family lunch. At no time is he separated from home and family and he never gets on a Monday morning bus!
Today, thanks to appropriate technology, we have the opportunity to conduct business at home whilst packing the kids off to school, planting the spinach, feeding the chickens and maybe indulging in an afternoon delight between google-ads.
The computer has replaced the weaver's loom, the internet has replaced the traveling merchants, software has replaced the yarn, but I bet you we have the same aspirations for peace, joy and happiness as our ancestors.
So what do you want to do? Stick with the Monday morning bus and the 19th century, or take your chances with the internet revolution and the 21st century.
You can get your copy of the book that changed my life at http://www.nowisagoodtime.com/dotcomology.html or if you want to cut straight to the chase and get your own website go to http://www.nowisagoodtime.com/pips.html
