How to Be in High Demand Without Selling Out: What eBay Taught Me About Self-Worth

I stared at my computer screen in disbelief.

0 bids.

That's what it said. The item had gone unsold.

Photo Credit: Thomas (creative commons)

Back up a bit and I'll explain. Between my dad and my father-in-law I had become hooked on classic rock music. On Saturdays I used to navigate for my father-in-law in his big black pickup truck as we traveled through town looking for vinyl records and stereo equipment at garage sales.

With my meager budget, I usually came home with just two or three records which I would promptly unsleeve and place carefully on my turntable.

One day I saw an album I didn't recognize, but I had a feeling about it. It had the Atlantic imprint and looked pre-rock 'n' roll so I took a chance and paid the unshaven owner the seventy-five cents.

My instinct paid off.

The Real Reason You Feel Incomplete

Admit it.

Sometimes you feel like something's missing. You feel like there's something or someone out there that will make you feel whole.

Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

You can't really pinpoint it, but you feel it; you feel incomplete.


We Are Unfinished

Have you ever heard a musical scale?

Listen to one where I stop on the seventh note of a C Major:

Doesn't it sound weird? That last note is begging to be resolved by the eighth and final note of the scale.

Listen to it again, but this time I'll finish it out.

Do you hear how the eighth note releases the tension with the completion of the scale?

Humans are just like that penultimate note in the scale.