Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Commerce Makes Me Cry...

I spend a lot of time on the road.  Actually, that really may be an understatement.  Given the nature of my career which demands quite a bit of road time--showing homes, picking up documents, listing appointments from the Triad to Triangle and having an active 11 year old--let's just say the 'ol Honda gets it's fair share of use.

I40/85 has become a new hang-out of mine, as our team recently expanded into the Triangle market after 12 successful years in the Triad.  Several days a week I make the relatively short jaunt back and forth from Winston-Salem to Raleigh, passing all kinds of people, in all makes and models of automobiles but most of all, I see lots of trucks!  Flat-beds loaded with machinery, military equipment and lumber; transfer trucks hauling livestock (always seems to be hogs), fast-food replenishment and other freight; and a variety of other multi-axle vehicles designed specifically to carry goods across our state, nation and continent.  Let's just say, sometimes it brings a tear to my eye...

I am sure by this point you are asking yourself what the heck I'm talking about and if I have finally gone over the edge...is the economy so poor that I am in tears about it's future?  Nope, just the opposite.  I am moved to get misty-eyed when I think that somewhere in our great nation and most likely in our great state, an entrepreneur has taken the wherewithal, to think up a product that can make his fellow man's life easier or more full-filled.  This same individual produces said product, markets it with a fervor and passion that creates a following (desirability) or a need and therefore the demand becomes so great that he must find a way to bring that product to the masses, thus employing the very vehicles mentioned above.

These multi-colored vessels of commerce are daily testaments to our mind and it's boundless energy.  We noticed, with a sad tug of something we might not have been able to identify, when truck-traffic temporarily thinned out after 9/11.  Something just wasn't right...we could feel it...

As I drive today across the roads and interstates of North Carolina, along one of the most productive and busiest commercial corridors in the nation, I am reminded of my own potential and the potential of my fellow commuters, as we all play an integral part in the strength of our economy, locally, nationally and globally.  It is not only inspiring, but it stirs a place in my soul that reminds me, that I'm unique, I can produce and therefore earn, I can influence our economy...and I will...because I'm an American.

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