It is interesting how many people are in careers they did not plan. For example, you finish college and take the first job you are offered despite the fact that it is not what you spent the last 4 years (or in some cases more) preparing for. Heck, your in your early 20's you are just happy to be employed!! And the money seems like a fortune, and in reality with no responsibilities it is! So you are happy ....for the time being. Next thing you know 20 years flies by, a spouse and 2/3 kids later ( or a divorce to boot )you take a look at your self and wonder what happened?!?! This isn't what I wanted to do with my life. Time Out...Take inventory....What do I want?!?!
I know getting started can be a challenge and a sacrifice.
Some would say I do not have as much as the next guy, but I know I have all I need and sometimes think I have too much.
My Dream you ask.......
Supporting myself as a full time artist moving back up to the mountains ( where I belong!!!!) and pursuing a simpler lifestyle.
Everyone's dreams are as individual as they are....What are yours???
Do you want more or less? A promotion, career change, to quit working, to start a business?
Then there are the people who know early on what they want and stay the course to become very successful in their own right. I have always been very aware of my artistic abilities from an early age, and have been active in my craft for more than 20 years, but I did not start to seriously focus on cultivating it till now. I'm in the redefining my life stage, realizing what is important and what is not. While most people were going to college and building a career, I was a modern day gypsy drifting around from place to place mostly out West and Hawaii, supporting myself with jewelry sales and bartending jobs. Wanting to take in as much as I could, I was young and had no responsibilities. This was my time, a part of me must have know it's now or never. After years of being on the road I came home for one of my brothers weddings and was visiting some old friends and one person said how they envyed my lifestyle, I thought that was interesting and asked "why?" and she said she felt she had done nothing exciting with her life, yes she continuded with school and had done what was expected of her, but she had no "passion".
INTERESTING!!! From my perspective I thought she had it good, she had a nice paying job, and starting a family: stability. But she never had the chance to spread her wings to see if she could fly. Me on the other hand had proved I could fly, but when I started to settle down and seek a "real" job. I had a hard time without a college degree and any real work experience ( bartending isn't really respected in the corporate world). My salary, if you could call it that, was the same as a high school graduate. That struggle to try and "fit" into the corporate world has convinced me that following my dream of being a full time artist is the best for me!
Life has a way of working itself out, struggle is good. It helps us to figure what we want in life, It helps to shape who we are. Stuggle lights a fire inside us to overcome and value what we have worked so hard for.
"A gem is not polished without rubbing, nor a man made perfect without trials."
Chinese proverb
1 comment:
I guess you could say I started somewhere in the middle and worked my way back-only back is actually forward. Confused? Well I did college, corporate America, bumble bumble for nearly a decade because everyone else was doing it and I was *really* good at it. Then, POOF! I woke up one day (last year) and realized what I wanted was simplicity; patchouli, some beads, a couple of cats and my love of writing. *Jazz hands* Great quote, btw.
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