“Out of Stock”

A few weeks ago, I entered a contest to win a consultation to redesign my home office. The consultants recommended a desk with drawers and a cupboard.

I went off to IKEA to acquire a new desk.

And guess what?

Designer or no, every single other person in Toronto had the exact same idea.

IKEA was DECIMATED.

When I got to the home office section, every single desk said “OUT OF STOCK” on it.

UGH.

I decided to just have a look at them anyways.

I found one I liked, and still took a picture of the tag.

I got to the self-serve checkout area, and decided to go ahead and check the computer for stock anyways… maybe the ‘out of stock’ tag was outdated.

I walked up to the first computer kiosk.

It was out of order.

I walked up to the second.

Same thing.

Soon enough, I figured out that all the computer kiosks were out of order.

Again, I wanted to just give up and think: “It’s just not meant to be.”

But then I asked my brain for ideas. I thought: “What else can I do?”

I saw a person lining up at a desk to ask about something.

I lined up too.

I showed the person at the desk what I was looking for. I told him that the sign said out of stock, but could he look and see, just in case?

He did.

And he turns to me and says: “It’s your lucky day. It looks like you got the LAST ONE.”

It made me think: We go through life, and we start doing something.

And then we come across signs that say “out of stock.”

They’re our friend who tells us “no one would pay for that”. They’re our competitor who just told us they’re not making any money. They’re the economy crumbling around us. They’re our OWN voice inside our head saying “you don’t know how to do that.”

And we’re going to wonder if we should believe them.

And then we’ll decide to keep going anyways.

And then we’ll find the self-serve kiosks are broken.

And we’re going to wonder if that’s a sign to just go home already.

It isn’t.

It’s when we double down and ask our brain for new ideas.

And we KEEP. GOING.

Until the day we put that beautiful desk with drawers and cupboards into our trunk.

Until the day our vision becomes a REALITY.