What will be the next big thing?

By Andrew Mell
Western Herald

Harry Potter.
Those two words symbolize an empire worth tens of billions of dollars between books, movies, and merchandise. They allowed three unheard, pre-teen British actors to garner in millions of dollars before they had the slightest idea what that would mean for them.

Most importantly those words have mystified a global population for both children and adults since the first book hit the shelves in the mid nineties.

By the time the last books in the series were released, they shattered records repeatedly for first day sales with people from every demographic lining up to get their copy.

But when you look at Harry Potter from a different perspective, what is it really? In its simplest form it was nothing more than an idea that popped into a person’s head. An idea thought up while waiting for a delayed train.

When JK Rowling thought up Harry Potter for the first time  she was no different than anyone else on this planet. Moderately successful, middle class, and incredibly ordinary.
So if an empire worth billions of dollars simply sprung up  than what’s stopping us from duplicating that feat?

It’s something that’s so simple, yet so impossibly complicated. The only thing sitting between me, you, and anyone else, and a bankroll of billions of dollars is an idea.

Perhaps it’s another book series like Harry Potter, or an appliance, or an entertainment system, a mode of transportation, vaccine, or something we have yet to comprehend.

The thought of it can drive a person crazy. More than a few people sit silently to themselves for minutes or hours at a time just thinking of the next big thing.

Oftentimes they come up with nothing, for the few who manage to imagine a realistic idea it’s either a flop or only moderately successful. Only once in a blue moon a life changing idea is thought of and is made a reality.

It’s amazing to think of how much people idolize material things and dream of vast wealth and opportunity. Worse yet are the measures they use to gain these riches: winning the lottery; what are the chances of that? Being an athlete, an occupation that less than one percent of people make a living off of, so on and so forth.

But to stop and think that simply coming up with one idea, the perfect idea, something so effortless, something so simple, could be our Harry Potter.

Really it’s nothing more than a tease. The realization that there is absolutely nothing stopping us from being wildly successful, beyond that of which any college degree or career could supply us, yet having that ability that seems so possible, be so impossible.

If coming up with the idea for the next big thing was easy we’d live in a world where everyone was tremendously rich and successful because everyone would be able to come up with the next big thing. Since we live in no such world it must be concluded that it is indeed a difficult thing to think of the unthought-of.

When a greyhound runs at breakneck speed to try and catch the mechanical rabbit on the inside of the track it seems so possible, yet we know it’s impossible. Impossible that is until that one rare day when the greyhound happens upon a real rabbit.

Be inspired to be revolutionary thinkers because our own Harry Potter is literally dangling in front of us mere inches from our fingertips. For those few lucky ones who manage that extra small lunge and are able to grasp the idea, the results are tremendous.

Perhaps one of us will be that lucky one.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on Jul 26 2009. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Cody Kimball
Web Manager: I'm a Communication Student at WMU, a SCUBA Diver, Boater, Ordained Minister, Notary Public, Web Designer, Film Maker, DJ, and of course a Journalist. Born and raised in Port Huron, MI and a graduate of SC4. http://www.codykimball.com