Starting Things Off

Here we go! If you read my last blog, I mentioned that I’ll be answering a series of writing prompts in the attempt to find my passion. I don’t think this will be a short journey, but I do think that somehow this will help me. Of course I would love your thoughts and any constructive advice you want to provide. Like I said before, the hardest part is getting started. So lets kick this off with the first writing prompt:

While at a beach, you decide to write a message in a bottle. What would it say? Who would you like to find it? 

It’s a truly beautiful world that not many people get to experience. Even now, as I watch it happen, I wonder how many people have seen the sun set over the waves. How many have been on a mountainside and experienced the vastness of a mountain range? How many have heard a foreign language spoken in its homeland? Felt a ship move beneath one’s feet? Felt the thrust of the air current jostle a plane during flight?

If you had to write a note and place it in a bottle, how many feelings, journeys, sights could you jot down and try to explain on one page? It’s a daunting task trying to transfer all the things you’ve ever experienced unto a reader.

Maybe what drives you is different than me. But when was the last time you stared at the sky? I hope, after reading this, you can take a good long glance and truly feel things or even let your mind wonder. Take time to experience.

I truly hope your day-to-day life is as enticing as you ever hoped it would be. But, if not, try and find your drive. The world is big, busy, and beautiful. If I have a place in it, so do you.

My advice is that you go out and experience this world. You only have one life on this Earth. At least to anyone’s knowledge, we only have one life. My advice is to not settle for less. It might take work. It might take patience. It might take time. But I’m working toward my desires and so are lots of other people. You are not alone. Together we will experience and grow in this world.

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Honestly, I hope that anyone would find my message. The prime reader would probably be someone who is receptive to insight. It’s not like I’m the best person to be giving advice, but maybe this is what someone would need to hear. Maybe they would be someone like me who needs to know that there are others out there that are trying to find their best life.

We live in such a big world that has so many different things to offer. Sometimes people can get lost. I think this might be for that person.

A New Era, A New Me

I’ve been feeling stuck for a while. That’s why I’ve returned to my blog. Well, it wasn’t really my blog since its prime purpose was for school and I needed it to graduate. But it’s my blog now and I’m going to start blogging again. But for me this time.

So, like I was saying, I’m stuck. I’m different than I was in school. Different things are happening in my daily life, and I know I’ve grown a lot as a person. But I keep coming back to the same thought. Mainly I’ve been wondering if I even have a passion to discover. Everyone around me seems to finally be finding what they truly want to do with their lives, or finding that they are an expert in some field or another. Me? I graduated college nearly two years ago and I’m not sure if the job I have now is where I want to stay forever.

I’ve always felt fortunate in my life because I recognize myself to be a very average and regular person. I’m a relatively happy, healthy,  and intelligent person and I know I have a good life. I’m really not missing anything in my life. But I can in no way deny that my confidence level could use a boost, especially when it comes to a professional career.

I think it comes down to the fact that I have a lot of interests, but I don’t consider myself an expert in any of those interests. I mean, who doesn’t love animals, books, movies, travel, weddings or other things that, in general, make people happy? I think that’s the problem: I just like what makes me feel good. And, unfortunately, there is no shortage of people who also have those interests and are somehow so much more qualified than I am.

I am regular. I am average. I am a Jack of all trades. I’ve had a little taste of pretty much everything, but no depth into anything specific. And now I’m not too pleased to be average. But, to be fair, I’m good at what I do- whatever I do- and that is always a positive.

Let’s rewind. I graduated college summa cum laude. I was in a good place. No job lined up, though I had been applying for months. But still, I had a decent resume and a stellar education. So I graduated in December and had no career waiting for me … yet. So I had to improvise.

Did you know that, if you have a college degree, you could work as a substitute teacher for pretty decent wages? That’s what I did when no jobs were popping up. My mother is a high school teacher and she suggested I start subbing until I found a full time gig. And it was great!

Being a substitute, you choose what classes you want to teach, whether you want to work every day of the week or not, what subjects to take, or even have the option of doing half-days. If you are ever in need of a very stable, but flexible job, subbing is the way to go.

I went through the process of becoming a substitute teacher (The school districts have you take an online course and a final test to make sure you are qualified and understand the rules). After my orientation, I was ready to start accepting positions. The first class I subbed for ended up needing me as a long-term sub at my mom’s school and I was there for two months, acting as the actual teacher.

It felt great and most of the students liked me. The head of the department loved me and wished I could stay. Honestly, the only downside of long-term subbing was grading all the students’ work. But after three months, I finally got a job offer. Two offers, actually. One was a contract position for only a year. The other was from my old mentor. He was my contact throughout college and even my manager at my first internship. He came to me with a position with a startup he was working for and offered me a higher salary and more stability. I took it.

The company and my colleagues have been very good to me. When I was planning my wedding, they were super helpful and flexible with my schedule so that I could get it done.

I work in Marketing and Communications. But, because this is a startup company, I wear a lot of hats and do a lot of work that can’t really be classified as marketing or communications. And I’ll be honest, I’m starting to feel drained. I need a change. I need to get back to writing, especially about the things that interest me.

I want to wake up and be excited to go to work. I’m a great writer, I just need revitalization. I like telling stories. I like when I receive compliments on my work and being confident that I’ve done a good job. I want to move forward. It’s still so early in my career and I want to take the opportunities I have to switch industries and find my passion. What better time to do that than now?

I’ve been talking to a recruiter. She was the one who actually suggested I start up blogging again. The goal is for me to remember how it feels to write about the things I love. Hopefully, that will get my confidence back up. So that’s what I’ll do. I’m hoping to discover what I love. I hope I can find what my passion is through this, find what I can be an expert on, and find a job that includes that.

Like I listed above, I have several things I love to do from reading to traveling to snuggling on the couch and watching movies while it rains outside. Needless to say, there isn’t just one topic I want to blog about. And, in my mind, that’s kind of a problem. Most blogs have a center, have a focus. So how can I write about all my passions, all my interests but still have a central theme to my blogs? Well, I think I’ve found the answer.

For Christmas last year, one of my friends gave me a book called “500 Writing Prompts.” I was very excited about the book, even read a couple prompts, but of course I haven’t sat down and written a response for any of it yet. Chalk this up to my lack of confidence, my being mentally drained, or my fear of getting back to writing. At least I’ve already gotten over the fear hurdle. I’ve started writing again in the form of this blog. Starting, in all honestly, is really the hardest part of anything. If you can start, you can finish.

So here’s my plan. I’m going to blog my answer to each writing prompt. In each blog, I’ll start with the prompt and write out my response. I’ll be as honest as possible and try to use my responses to find my passion(s). I don’t want to make promises about how often I’ll write these responses. I know I can do weekly, but maybe eventually I can get up to daily responses. It’s not like I’m going to run out of prompts anytime soon.

I don’t know how this will play out. I hope to be at least a little entertaining, maybe even make some of you think a little about how you would respond. But I have hope in what this can do for me, so let’s see where this goes, shall we?

Stay tuned.