The Have To and the Want To

For as long as I can remember, there has been a "Have To."

I just didn't always call it that.

The Have To is pretty simple.

I have to get up when the alarm goes off.

I have to go to work.

I have to pay the bills.

I have to be responsible for the people who depend on me.

I have to do the things life requires, because for a long time it never felt like there was another option.

The Have To wasn't something I resented.

It was just... life.

There was a Want To, too.

But for years it lived somewhere else

.

In dreams.

In "someday."

In all those conversations that start with, "If I ever get the chance..."

The funny thing is, I don't know when I started calling them the Have To and the Want To.

Maybe it happened when the Want To finally stopped feeling impossible.

For a lot of years, I had an image in my head that I used whenever someone asked how life was going.

I told them it felt like being at the bottom of a well.

You'd struggle.

Claw your way up the sides.

Finally see daylight.

And just before you reached the top, something would shove you back down and start filling the hole in above you.

It wasn't that life was hopeless.

It just felt like every step forward came with two steps back.

When that's the life you're living, the Have To is all there is.

You don't spend much time thinking about the Want To because the Have To demands all your attention.

Somewhere along the way, that changed.

Not overnight.

There wasn't one magical day when everything suddenly became easy.

Life just got... better.

Little by little.

I found myself with enough room to imagine something beyond getting through the week.

That's when Dwolfdragon Designs stopped being an idea and became something I could actually build.

Not because I expected it to replace my full-time job.

Not because I had some grand business plan.

Because I finally had room for a Want To.

Today, the Have To is still there.

Every weekday morning, the alarm still goes off.

I still make the drive.

I still clock in.

That part of my life hasn't disappeared.

The difference is what waits for me afterward.

Now there are printers humming in the workshop.

Lasers waiting for the next design.

Planning for the next event.

Conversations with customers.

Projects that only existed in my imagination a few days earlier.

There are evenings when I lose track of time because I'm making something simply to see if I can.

The Have To pays for the lights in the shop.

The Want To is why I smile when I turn them on.

I don't know if the Want To will ever become the Have To.

Maybe one day Dwolfdragon Designs will stand on its own.

Maybe it won't.

Strangely, that isn't the most important part anymore.

The important part is that the Want To is no longer waiting for "someday."

It's happening now.

Maybe only a few hours at a time.

Maybe squeezed in between work, errands, and everything else life asks of me.

But it's real.

And after spending so many years believing there was only one path...

That feels like a pretty remarkable thing.