I can remember having several debates with a former girlfriend who is a high-profile attorney on the west coast. The fact that she was a high-profile attorney, though impressive, was not her lure. For me, the fact that she started from scratch, actually on a park bench, worked her way through one of the most prestigious law schools in the country, and has offices in Beverly Hills and beyond, was a lure. The fact that she is a good person didn't hurt. She looked at the struggle as part of the dream, not something to complain about. The way she thought was the way I wished to think. The way she worked was the way I wished to work. She has discipline and organizational skills; business elements of which I am still but nubile and shall be for awhile.

I am the better marketer of the two, she says, but the jury is still out. She never advertises, does not even have a website, and her waiting room is always full of people waiting to pay her and pay her well.

My ex-mate has life head and heals above me, and I admire her for it. I admire he character and the way she works. Though I have learned to multi-task, she can multi-task ten things at once and do them all perfectly. She built a huge Beverly Hills law practice starting from a park bench, with English as a second language, and has more clients than with which she knows what to do. I on the other hand have some nifty Internet cartoon stores from my Londons Times Cartoons. Respectable? Well yes, and know. I make a good living, but a lot of my peers, doctors, lawyers and such, still consider me a Waylon Jennings almost grown-up cowboy. In other words, we don't share the golf course at the country club.

My ex and I are alike in so many ways and not alike in others. When I was young, I was quite the "car person"; loved fast cars and even raced them at the track. But today, I'm happy at age 53 with my four cylinder Saturn and she's happy trading in her new Mercedes for another one every year.

I live in the Ouachata Mountains in Arkansas. She says we "think small" and work too hard for too little. I wish Sam Walton could hear our conversations regarding "small-thinking people from Arkansas".

She like most Californians I've befriended (and I beg forgiveness for generalizing), have quickly adopted every New Age guru's advice from A Course In Miracles To "The Secret" as long as it attracts money by just "thinking about money, and of course, as long as Oprah endorses it.

I don't believe in gurus. The "real guru" is in all of us. Dr. Vinton Cerf, the Father Of the Internet and founder of tcp-ip while a sophomore at Stanford, long before he became a PHD, leveled the playing field to knock down the "so called gurus or captains of business"; so that all information would be available to everyone. If we utilize the Internet correctly and absorb all the good information on it, who needs gurus, who needs new age, who needs to spend an extra dime for any of that? I surely don't.

Life is what it is. I can't debate with her about income. If I want to make more, I will promote my business more, go to law school, or both. A good lawyer, historically, makes a better income than a good cartoonist and e-tailer. But I don't like law. Grew up with plenty of lawyers in my family and though they made a great living, very few of them enjoyed it. In fact several quit and one never even practiced after daddy paid for law school. So it goes.

So everyone is telling me to "live the dream" and "sell the dream". I don't want to be sold those things. I feel like I'm in a conversation with Elmer Gantry when that occasionally happens. I'd rather talk about the weather.

Carl Jung was in full agreement. He felt it wonderful to live a spiritual life and live in the now as well. Too much attention on dreams can make "Johnny a dull boy", just like too much attention on reality can too. There has to be a balance. And that is an art. And that art, like any skill, can be learned.

He purveys the caveat that it will never be utopia no matter how "pristine the dream". So, what to do?

I think the thing to do is "do what you like". For some people, the dream is money. Back when Nelson Rockefeller was one of the richest if not the world's richest persons, he was asked, "How much money is enough?" He answered, "Just a little bit more."

I worked in corporate America for two decades chasing the almighty dollar. I made a lot of them. I can assure you they did not buy me happiness, and, in retrospect, because I hated what I was doing for a living.

It is insightful to read autobiographies of captains of business such as Bill Gates and others. They struggled too. They had many missteps along the way, many failures. They discuss them. It was those mistakes that led them to finally do it right. Alfred Nobel invented dynamite before he invented his famous prize. It was for blowing up mountains to build cities. When he learned the military was using it for killing people he fell into a depression. That is not how he wanted to go down in history. So he re-invented himself. So can you. So can I.

I have many wealthy friends, many middle class, many upper class, many lower class; I really don't find any of that important as a requisite for friendship. I love being around people who are doing things to try to improve themselves and others. If someone is out there just trying to make a lot of money, so be it. They bore me. If they are out there trying to provide the best service, product, or creative endeavor out there, and whether they make a pot of gold, or not, I will hang with them.

So to each his own on living the dream. My dream may not be yours.

Whatever your dreams and goals, try to forget some of the things our parents taught us. We now live in a "live and let live world". No more sales tactics. The ultra-sales gurus are old news.

Big thinking? I like to think that I think big. But I act small. I love the term, "Think globally, act locally". If all I did was think big, I think that would requre a lot of energy and I would not get much legwork done. I don't mind working in the trenches. You shouldn't either if you have a true entrepreneurial spirit. That will change. But we have to start somewhwere.

I am not saying not to think big. All I am saying is to lay the foundation first. Do the legwork. Check your waist-size and make sure you are not too big for your britches (too soon). And make sure it is your dream, not one delegated to you. You are bound to make some "enemies" by not following someone else's dream, but you'll make many friends too. And most of all you will be your friend, and know "To thine own self be true" is what it is all about.

You will be happy, rich, or not.