Headstrong or All Wrong?

Upon looking up the official meaning of headstrong, I wasn’t too far off from what I perceived it to be. It mentions it can be a good thing and it said that many headstrong people made history because they fought traditional values or outdated rules that need to be changed. 

That’s all fine and dandy. I was a headstrong person to the extreme when I insisted on leaving Massachusetts after yet another New England recession clobbered me. So I decided to reside and start a business here twenty-nine years ago and I would not let anybody talk me out of it. It eventually turned out to be the smartest thing I ever did in my life.

My headstrong ambition was to move here and open a jewelry store geared to my profession as a goldsmith offering what I created with my hands to the public, and continue to design pieces influenced by my proximity of living and working by the sea, which was something I loved. Wearing a three-piece suit, sporting immaculate hair and a manicure behind the counter was not my thing.

Opening a new jewelry shop is no easy task, especially when I arrived here in paradise with a bad case of “fundsalow. “I worked several years with the postal service in Naples, where I was designated a part-time flexible letter carrier. Part time. Wow! I thought that would be great. It would give me time to locate a store front and slowly create stock for my grand opening in the near future. 

There is an old saying “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your dreams!” Little did I know that working as a “part time flexible letter carrier” would mean delivering mail between sixty to seventy hours a week and that also included most every holiday. Not a lot of time left over to locate a shop or strive for my dreams and aspirations. The near future became the not so near future. 

But I was headstrong. Before long, an inexpensive storefront on the island fell in my lap. Every fiber in my body said no, the timing is wrong, don't do it! So I did it anyway. It was a long hard rocky road to where I am today and the rest is ancient history. Dreams still can come true.

That was nearly thirty years ago and the term being headstrong appears to have a different meaning today.

Today when I encounter a headstrong person it is rarely an enjoyable experience because they are attempting to influence me or “bend me to their ways” sort of thing. For example, I’m constantly being told what I should charge someone for a piece of my jewelry or a service I’ve performed. Do these headstrong folks argue the price at the checkout counter at the hardware store or maybe even Publix? (Have you ever had the experience of being behind someone holding a ream of expired coupons and there you are standing there fuming holding a five pound melting bag of ice?) 

The price tag on everything for sale on this planet states a price and yet I’m often asked ”Can you do better?” On a high priced item there is sometimes some wiggle room but on a $7 jar of jewelry cleaner…no! I don’t exactly expect to retire on my profits from a jar of jewelry cleaner. I might suggest trying to buy something nicer and I’ll give you the jewelry cleaner free. Personally I’m not a good haggler and maybe that’s because I am usually the haggle “e” so I’m rarely in that position, except recently when a walking t-shirt vendor on the beach in Cabo San Lucas refused to sell one of his shirts for $5 less than he was asking. He walked away from me! His only overhead was a sombrero, the sun and the clouds? It was all polyester and would fall apart after the first wash anyway.

I once had a headstrong someone offer me $10,000 less than the price tag on a very important large diamond ring. I immediately said no can do, explaining to him jokingly I’m not in the business to lose money, and you are not leaving me any meat on the bone, so to say. He was adamant I take his offer because the wife really wanted the ring. I suggested he look at something a bit less expensive. No he had to have that one at $10,000 less. He came in three days in a row with the same offer - I guess he figured he would wear me down and I would eventually relent. Yes sure, one of my favorite things in life is losing money. I savored what happened on our next encounter. I was ready for him on day four. Mr. Headstrong meets old school headstrong, call it an intervention from heaven. Mr. Headstrong wasn’t the only interested party in that same ring. She showed me the money and left me a hefty deposit, after I had mentioned there was this Mr. Headstrong also kinda sorta interested in the ring. In my business kinda sorta does not buy you squat, a large deposit means the person made a decision to purchase. I consider it SOLD. I took the ring out of the showcase placed it in the safe. Sure enough he’s back again the next day searching for the ring with the same offer. “Sorry, sold it for my asking price after you left yesterday.” Needless to say that news went over like rain on a beach wedding. I figured that was that. I was wrong - it gets better. A week later, who do you think walks in but the wife of Mr. Headstrong, inquiring about “her ring.” I’m like what ring? I did not recognize her “the ring you and my husband were negotiating over!”  I’m sorry but your husband’s offer was, how do I say this tactfully… unacceptable, and with no deposit the ring goes back in the case and available to anyone who wants it. We sold it last week. 

“WHATTT! He told me it was as good as mine, it was only a matter of time. Well then, I want another one just like it!” 

Swell! Lucky me, now I’m dealing with Mr. and Mrs. Headstrong. Problem is that was a one of a kind two carat pink diamond platinum ring. I don’t have another one just offhand like a replacement jar of peanut butter.

I was able to locate a similar one in the same price range, a couple of weeks later but she insisted on the exact same ring and nothing else would do and that proved to be impossible for me to re-create because of the rarity of another pink diamond that color, shape and size. They both eventually faded into the sunset. It’s just as Jimmy Buffet says, “in the tropics they come and they go.” 

In closing, as you can see being Headstrong today is a like a double edged sword, and can be a good thing for some to achieve goals or use it to navigate through life or it can be used in the worst way, where you are universally perceived as being “A Karen or a Kevin” on steroids and that is bad thing, and most of us will agree with me on that.