My family has this New Year tradition where we each pick a word that we want to be our “word” for the coming year. This is the word that sums up your philosophy or whatever that you’re hoping to carry through the next 365 days.
This year, I chose “Endeavor” as my word. I always enjoy a word that can be used as both a Noun and a Verb. As a verb it means to “work with set purpose” or “strive to achieve or reach”. The noun “endeavor” is used to identify a “serious determined effort”. It kind of seems like it could be used as an adjective too (imo). Regardless, all uses of the word are fine for the way I am approaching 2025.
I’ll paraphrase a saying that I’ve always been fond of: Compete with the person you were yesterday, rather than the person someone else is today.
My interpretation of this is that spending a lot of time hyper-focused on someone else’s station without knowing the steps that it took for them to get there is an exercise in futility. Its far more effective to focus on where you were previously, where you are now and where you want to go from here. Then you can put your steps together and forge a path.
This is kind of what I like about the character “Endeavor” from My Hero Academia. He was the inspiration for this word choice. Here’s the guy in 2nd place who has spent his whole career trying to surpass the #1 hero. He’s a lousy father and husband who completely alienated his family and people generally don’t like him, even if they respect him. Despite being a bit of a bastard, he is still a hero.
Endeavor's arc begins when he finally reaches the #1 spot in a way that feels unsatisfying to him. With no goal to hurl himself towards he’s left looking at the mess of a life he’s created. His atonement is working hard to be worthy of the #1 position, which means being a better person to the people in his life.
Does it all work out? Well, there’s a lot more to the story, but those ideas really spoke to me while watching the show.
I decided to start a Comic Book store at a time when stores are closing all over the place. People who are way smarter than me, with a lot more experience have decided to close up shop. I scroll through social media feeds and see established stores and sellers who have their shit together on a level I can’t even imagine reaching. Spending time and energy comparing where I'm at to where they're at is a waste. So, I don't.
This time two years ago my wife had just completed 16 weeks of grueling chemotherapy. I had been researching how to start a business while sitting with her during her injections. Like any reasonably sane person, I had all the same fears and doubts nagging at my brain. It wasn’t until the passing of my 95-year-old Grandmother, followed immediately by the untimely demise of my younger Sister that I decided to move forward with my plans.
I think about the work that I put into coding the website and back-end software for the store. I remember bagging and boarding thousands of books; the hours spend learning how to press and clean books. I’m proud of what has been accomplished. Our online store closing in on 3,000 orders and our new brick & mortar location is already getting a lot of foot traffic.
However, I have to be better than I was yesterday and tomorrow I’ll need to surpass today. I have to keep identifying areas of potential growth and push the store to be better than we were.
This applies to all areas of my life, not just Mutation Comics & More. I want to be the best version of myself for my family, friends and neighbors too.
As they say in most anime/manga, I promise to do my best.
So, I’ll wrap this up with a sincere Thank You for your business and support in 2024. I wish everyone the best in 2025 and hope we can exceed your expectations as a comic shop! Happy New Year!
