Where Will You Find Your Gold?

I spent last weekend in Angels Camp, California this weekend with my family, right in the heart of Gold Rush Country. Since I’m an eternal history nerd, I prepped for the trip by watching Ken Burns’ documentary The West on Netflix a couple of weeks before the trip, and picked up books on the Gold Rush from the library to read while we are here. If personal history is any indication, my entire summer will be spent digesting everything I can about the gold rush era until our August vacation location diverts my attention.

In my research, I discovered so much about the history of our great country, as well as the dreamers and entrepreneurs who came before us. You may know about the folks who became rich after making the hard trek West and digging up gold. Did you know that there were a lot of people who also made a tremendous living for themselves who never once panned, picked, or dug for anything?

Those folks were the ones with enough foresight to anticipate what the miners would need. They set up restaurants, hotels, and stores that sold picks and pans. They were entertainers who traveled to where the 49’ers with pockets full of gold and bellies full of liquor were tipping freely. Maybe they didn’t have the brawn or even the financial backing to jump in and dig for gold, but they were smart enough to find a way to benefit anyway.

There’s a lesson in that for all of us dreamers today.

Where will we find our gold? What if taking the obvious route to success isn’t what leads us to our mother lode? We can’t all be gold miners. It’s hard work, and it’s not for everybody anyway. We can all be successful, though. If we’re open to the possibilities, committed to being innovative, and stay aware of what’s going on around us, we’re bound to hit pay dirt. There’s gold in these streets. The question is, where will we find it?