After a few weeks of soul searching I’ve made the decision to permanently close Wishingline. I hinted at this being a real possibility in a couple previous entries, though my original intenion was to simply put the company on ice in the short term because I needed some distance and clarity to make an informed decision about what to do.

I’ve had a bit of time now and simply, for me, the right thing to do is completely wipe the slate clean.

Over the years Wishingline’s become more than just me and as I hinted at, I don’t entirely recognize it anymore. Simply — circumstances change and people change. As a result companies change and adapt too.

As I suspect is true of most companies who’ve got a few years under their belt, they’ve had their fair share of great successes, a few crushing defeats and a handful of fits and starts, but looking back, and dispite some mistakes made along the way, I feel proud of what I’ve accomplished and for taking some big risks. I don’t feel like I’ve failed by any means — or I at least need to keep reminding myself of that.

It was a risk when I left a stable job and struck out on my own. It was a risk when I decided it was time to grow the company and move into the office space the company occupied until last week. It was a risk when I brought in not just one new fulltime employee, but two, especially over a fairly short time period. And of course (for various reasons) it’s a risk I’m taking now closing the door on Wishingline.

When all’s said and done though, it’s the right thing for me to do.

Uncertain Weather

What the future holds for me is still very much uncertain. I have a good idea what I don’t want to do, it’s now a question of what I do want to do. I haven’t eliminated the possibility of freelancing or something similar, but if so, the circumstances under which that happens will be very different based on everything I’ve experienced and learned. And if so, it’d be under a different banner; but who knows. I might not return to the freelance/small agency world at all.

If I haven’t been particularly active here, on Twitter or Flickr of late, it’s because I’ve been working on tying up loose ends and exploring possibilities, including what exactly to do with this site. Honestly I’ve been feeling like a bit like a lost puppy and still have some important questions to answer before I make the next big decision.

As much as I’m still pretty emotional about everything that’s happened this year, and though I’m closing one door, I’m opening another. This is an opportunity. I don’t think it’s too pie in the sky to say, but life is just too short to spend stuck in a rut, doing something that doesn’t make you truly happy or leaves you feeling like you’re not living up to your full potential. Carpe diem, as they say.

Change, Change, Change

Over the next little while I’ll be starting to dismantle the business side of the Wishingline site. I’m debating what to do about this notebook though and whether I should keep it up as-is, do some fancy redirects to move it up to the top of the domain, move it to an entirely new domain or… I don’t know. I haven’t sorted out what all the possible implications are of doing any of the above but whatever I end up deciding, I’ll do what I can to not break the internets.