She looked at me with a question written on her face.

"Why are you doing this?" is all she asked.

I paused. I thought long and hard about all the other answers I could have given her at that moment, but the only one that made sense was the one I gave her.

"Because I love doing it."

Ive been a writer all my life. When I was young, I used to escape to my room after school to write everything from poetry to short stories. In my room, within those moments, tucked away beneath the harsh reality of prying eyes and judgemental views, I was safe. I could write about ghosts who found and loved each other long after their bodies walked upon the earth. With words, I could portray a young girl struggling to live after an horrific car accident. I could create images within a few short stanzas of a poem about the fanciful flights of dragonflies. Within, words flowed through my mind and through my pen like a soft summer breeze. With words, I could become anything, and anyone.

As I grew older, I learned how to include those creative tendencies in larger projects, like essays. In a Grade 11 History class, I once compared the Roman Empire to a woman stretching herself over a map of the known world, letting the sands of Egypt run between her toes as she splashed playfully with one hand in the North Sea. My old Remington typewriter keys seemed to fly every time I was inspired to write myself into another world, or another dream.

I started writing for the Red Lake District News in the fall of 1974, and all through high school became known as "Roy the Reporter". I had a flair for words. Whenever I wrote, I would try to push the envelope of sensibility by incorporating words Im sure Webster never intended to use in a report about a second-rate high school hockey team.

"Put the puck in the net!" became "Put the spangle in the twine!", and believe it or not, was the cheer heard during a Mens hockey game between Red Lake and Sioux Lookout. I relished the moment because I knew someone, somewhere had read what I had written. It was the same sense of satisfaction I got when I wrote a scathing report about our high school football team after a humiliating 27-3 loss. The football team invited me to their dressing room and then asked me to swallow the very article they shredded and placed on a plate, complete with ketchup. Naturally, I refused. So incensed was the team, they handed the league leading Beaver Brae Bears only their second loss of that season, 28-7.

In high school I learned, albeit in a small way, about the power of the written word. It became the drug of choice whenever I felt something. Anger. Fear. Resentment. Joy. Excitement. Love. Emotions drove almost everything I wrote, and have written, in one way or another. For me, and likely a lot of other writers, words became a warm blanket on a cold, winters night. A well-written story became a sanctuary against a backdrop of changing times in the 70's.

Let me share a story with you.

A man once travelled the whole world looking for meaning in his life. Through various adventures and misadventures, he kept returning to his hometown, always surviving at home by painting pictures of places he had been, and sketching people he had known in his travels. But he wasnt happy. Something was missing. So he kept travelling, taking on a multitude of different jobs and rendering his life on canvas and paper.

Finally, after many years, he examined his life, trying to determine some meaning to it. As hard as he did, he couldnt figure out what his life meant. All of his paintings, and all of his sketches hadnt helped in figuring out the meaning of his life, nor what he should be doing with his remaining years. So he visited an old friend and explained the problem. The elder listened very carefully as he smoked his pipe and smiled, ever so briefly, as the man finished his story.

"What is the one thing in life you keep returning to?" the elder asked the man, without pausing between puffs.

The man shrugged.

"Painting, I guess."

"Thats your answer." is all the elder said before retiring to his home.

The man returned to his home and again looked at his paintings, and sketches. There, hidden among everything was the meaning of his life. Moments in time frozen on canvas. Portraits of children smiling, animals in the wild, sunsets casting long shadows and elders reminiscing. He realized the purpose in his life was simply to record everything he had seen. To make a record of life. He realized his life hadnt been in vain after all.

In all the interviews Ive conducted over the course of the past nine months, Ive heard people tell me the same thing: "Find out what youre good at and keep doing it."

In business, we tend to confuse profit and loss with who we are, so we start taking on projects and assignments that become "work". We are led to believe that if it doesnt feel like work, then it must not be work, and hence, of no value. Yet Ive encountered many successful entrepreneurs who are still "in the game", largely because they enjoy what they do. Profit comes second. In some cases, even third after family or God. That is the secret to their success - and yours.

They continue to pay the price for what they do because they enjoy their business and want it to grow. They love their business, and for many, cannot imagine a day without it.

I have been writing articles and taking photographs for many different publications since I was first published in the fall of 1974. I have been involved in commercials and video projects through the years, not worrying about whether there was a large reward at the end of the assignment. The business of owning the "Northern Entrepreneur" keeps me busy, and entertained. Journalism is the one thing in life I keep returning to, in one form or another, whether it be in print, broadcast or the Internet.

Do what you love. Love what you do.

Do it because it is the one thing in life that you cant live without.

Do it because it gives you a sense of fulfillment nothing else in the world can.