Get Ugly and Get What You Want Out of Life

I was out shopping with Puddin the other day, perusing the aisles of our neighborhood toy store. I stumbled into what might possibly be the cutest damned thing I have ever seen...the Uglydoll. These simple plush little monsters come in all shapes, sizes and colors. I asked the store owner about them and she said that these were the hottest items she had in the store.

My immediate thought was "Damn! Why didn't I think of that. These things are just weird shaped pieces of felt sewn together with silly faces on them. I could have sewn a sock with googly eyes on it and called it Socko the Sock Seas Monster. Curse you God! Why don't my dreams come true?! Why do you test me like this?! I have dreams! I have inspirations! Don't you know that I now have 4 mouths to feed? Why can't I have stuff! I want stuff!"

After I was asked to leave the toy store and never come back (I guess I must have verbalized half of the diatribe that I thought was just in my head), I went home and did a little bit of research on the Uglydoll. What I found was a solid reminder that if you want things, you need to do things.

The story behind Uglydoll is a great inspiration to those interested in making their dreams come true:

It started in October 2001 with a letter David Horvath wrote to Sun-Min Kim just after she had to move away due to a student visa expiring, long before they were married. That letter had a cartoon of his character Wage at the bottom saying: "Working hard to make our dreams come true so we can be together again soon" next to it. That dream was to tell stories through books and toys. As a surprise gift Sun-Min sewed a doll of Wage, and sent it to David in the mail. David showed Wage to his pal Eric Nakamura, owner of the Giant Robot magazine and store, who thought David was pitching him a product and immediately ordered a few more for his shop. David wrote to Sun Min asking her to sew more, while sending emails with stories about Wage, Babo and Ice-Bat's first ever adventure, soon to become Chilly Chilly Ice-Bat. The stuffed animals come in a normal size, a "little ugly", "Jumbo", or a clip-on. (via Wikipedia)

Ten years later, Uglydoll has gone from being a doodle on a letter, to a toy and book empire.

So the moral of the story is that if you want something in this world, get off your duff and do it. Even if it is creating just one poorly made prototype out of tape, sticks and hope. That is one step closer to your dream. Go do it. It will lead to the next step, which will lead to the next step. Eventually you will find yourself down a path, where you are bringing your ideas to life. Go make some thing ugly today!!!

Do you have a dream or scheme that is going to take you from check-to-check Charlie to Daddy Morebucks? What are you doing to bring this idea to life? Let us know.

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