Do you really need to pee, or do you just want candy?

I've always been fascinated by the prospect of pursuing a career as an entrepreneur.  I took two entrepreneurship classes at USC as a part of my MBA curriculum, and used my only foray in this field for a class project at the time; an endeavor that paid for two thirds of my exorbitant post graduate program at a private school.

Thanks to Virginia Postrel's "In Praise of Irrational Exuberance - Does a flourishing economy depend on delusion?" posted on BigQuestionsOnline.com, I will no longer consider my professional life as a disappointment for failing to realize my dream of becoming an entrepreneur, and here's why:

Many entrepreneurs are delusional about their chances of success.  Investing time and money in a new business is an "irrational bet" which the entrepreneurial culture encourages.  A few startups get lucky and hit the jackpot.  The rest fizzle out of memory.  This view is what critics of capitalism espouse; that the entrepreneur bunch overestimate their chances of striking it rich.  In truth, however, entrepreneurs are rarely motivated by money alone.  They strive to create something of value, and more importantly, be their own boss.  The idea of working for others is utterly unappealing, and one way or another, a venture will succeed enough to sustain them.

The same illusion is what spurs consumers to consume.  "The glamour of new, as yet- unexperienced goods or experiences thus contain an element of pleasurable, often deliberate self delusion.  We not only enjoy new things, we also enjoy imagining how much we'll enjoy them.  Anticipation and desire themselves are part of consumer pleasure."

And while on the subject of fantasizing, according to an October 2000 Time-CNN poll, 19 percent of Americans were convinced they belonged to the richest 1  percent.  Another 20 percent thought they'd make the rank of the top 1 percent at some point in their lives (the American dream?)  That's quite a turnover in the top 1 percent category to accommodate 20 percent of the population passing through.

We're in the middle of potty training our older daughter.  We offer her candy every time she uses the toilet.  This morning, she asked to use the bathroom for a second time in less than a half hour.  When my wife asked her, "do you really need to pee, or do you just want candy?", she responded "I want candy."  And that, as it turns out, is how I feel about entrepreneurship.  Do I really want to be an entrepreneur, or just toil in thought of being one?  I suspect I just want the candy as well.