There’s Gotta Be Something More

The Story Begins On Your Way
Into Work One Day . . .

It is a Monday morning, the start of a 9 to 5 work week …

Imagine you are sitting in a traffic jam, listening to the radio, with a 22 mile commute each direction between your home and office. You decide to listen to the news on the radio to find out what and where the traffic jam is. Traffic jam may not be the best way to describe it, think parking lot on the highway. You are literally not moving an inch. The commute, without traffic, is 1 hour each way.

Several things come to mind:

1. Time to call the boss to let him/her know you are going to be running late.
2. Need to find someone to cover the meeting you are suppose to be leading with 30 people. One you are obviously not going to be able to make.
3. Benefit of being salary instead of hourly.

You change the radio station to listen to country music.  It is April 2005 and Sugarland just released the second single from their debut album Twice the Speed of Life. It quickly becomes the number 2 hit on the Hot Country Songs charts.

The first verse catches your attention right away so you turn the volume up.

“Come on!

Monday, hard to wake up
Fill my coffee cup, I’m out the door
Yeah, the freeway’s standing still today
It’s gonna make me late and that’s for sure
I’m running out of gas and out of time
Never gonna make it there by nine”

You start to think, it isn’t just me. The song describes the exact situation you find yourself in. This has to mean there are other people thinking the same way you do.

Traffic starts to move a bit, albeit slow. Now you are really enjoying this song. The chorus comes on and you crank up the volume and start bobbing your head and using the steering wheel like a drum.

Thankfully, you are alone. Who knows what the drivers around you are thinking. Who cares really?

“There’s gotta be something more, gotta be more than this
I need a little less hard time, I need a little more bliss
I’m gonna take my chances
Taking a chance I might find what I’m looking for
There’s gotta be something more”

 

Several more things come to mind:

1. What opportunity is available to find what “I’m looking for”?
2. What possibilities exist to allow me to make a change?.
3. Have I really had enough of all of this to take a chance?

“Five years and there’s no doubt
That I’m burnt out, I’ve had enough
So now boss man, here’s my two weeks
I’ll make it short and sweet, so listen up
Well, I could work my life away, but why?
I got things to do before I die”

You started with the company you are working for in 1997 so it has really been six years not five. All of the rest of the verse hits really close to home, especially the burnout. You see hope, you hear someone saying they are really going to take action.

This raises the question again, am I really ready to take this much of a chance?

There are other factors. Let’s see, a house, utility, automobile, and insurance payments. These are just the big ticket items in the household budget.

You are a single parent raising a son. You added student loans to the expenses in an attempt to adequately provide for him. There are responsibilities.

Giving a two week notice sounds so enticing, yet so out of reach. A seed is planted. Not really ready to give a two week notice, the idea of “finding something more” is born.

The chorus is repeated here in the song. You have heard it once, now comes the urge to try to sing along. Admittedly, it did not go so well the first time.

Give it a few more days, however, and you find yourself singing along every word every time you hear it.

“Some believe in destiny and some believe in fate
But I believe that happiness is something we create
You best believe that I’m not gonna wait
‘Cause there’s gotta be something more”

Not being really ready to just jump off the deep end, so to speak, this verse suggests “happiness is something we create”. You realize it is time to start researching options and to get busy creating happiness.

During this same time, you start a hobby. This hobby eventually becomes a second profession. Could the “something more” be to switch into the new profession?

The extra profession is scuba diving. You go through the steps to see about creating happiness doing something you have fallen in love with. After finding a potential business partner and the funding to purchase either a scuba diving park or a scuba diving store, reality sets in. Looking at the numbers, the truth comes out.

There is even a joke in the scuba diving industry, “If you want to open a scuba diving shop for 1 million dollars, you better have 2 million dollars to spare”.

You now have two different jobs and are working more and more. Two years go bye and you realize you are still looking for the “Something More”.

Interestingly enough a door opens once you make the decision to close a door. The company you are working for decides to offer Voluntary Separation and Early Retirement Packages. Your package pays you 13 months severance pay. You realize this is your chance to change and you take the Voluntary Separation Package.

“I get home 7:30, the house is dirty but it can wait
Yeah, ’cause right now I need some downtime
Just to unwind and celebrate
Yeah, Armageddon could be knocking at my door
But I ain’t gonna answer that’s for sure”

There are now 13 months for you to research and find that “Something More”. First you need the downtime to celebrate. Admittedly after 10 years of supposed security you do dread Armageddon.

You, however, have a certain amount of relieve and determination to create happiness. The last verse is a bit different from the original chorus. Now, 2 years later you have it down to do a sing along with too.

“There’s gotta be something
Gotta be something more, gotta be more than this
I need a little less hard time, I need a little more bliss
I’m gonna take my chances
Taking a chance I might find what I’m looking for
Gotta be something more
(There’s gotta be something)
Got to be, got to be, got to be more
(Gotta be something, yes)”

Songwriters
KRISTIAN BUSH, JENNIFER NETTLES, KRISTEN HALL

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Lyrics © BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC, GREATER GOOD SONGS

Your Journey To Online Entrepreneur
The Search For Something More !!!!!