Tell me about yourself.

[resonant]

I'm suddenly struck with the desire to know how other people do the things that matter most to them, how they find and follow their passions.

How do you decide where your heart is? How do you carve out time and energy to pursue it?

Are you on a new road or one you've been following for a long time? What have you learned that could help others? What false starts have you made, what poor judgments? What have you compromised, and what do those compromises look like to you now?

Comments

[julad.livejournal.com]

Ahaha, I think asking this will just get you more questions than answers... *g*

I stumbled upon my path a long time ago, and I don't assume it's forever, but I think it's good for a few more years yet. I knew where I wanted to go, but I didn't have a map, and sometimes I got bad directions when I asked *g*, so I've come the long way. However, I don't mind, because the journey's been valuable and I've been getting closer all the time, traveling through interesting territory (although sometimes "interesting" as in, "May you live in interesting times," *g*).

My only real regret/compromise/stupidity, I think, is with finances, which I basically ignored (read: spent!), and that has limited my options and made things take longer and be harder than they would have been otherwise.

How do you decide where your heart is? How do you carve out time and energy to pursue it?

Basically I always tell people (for some reason people keep asking me!), follow whatever you're interested in, because you don't know all the crazy jobs and occupations and things that exist out there, and you can't see it until you're nearly there. It's sort of like, once you get into the ballpark you'll find out all the different places in the ballpark you could go. I also maintain that if you're in the right ballpark, sooner or later you'll stumble onto what it is you really want (or it'll pounce on you), and at least in the meantime, wherever you currently are, it'll have some resemblance to where you want to be, and you'll be learning things that will help you when you figure out where to go. I think following your interests is the only way to collect pieces that will fall into place later, and if they don't, well, at least they're pieces you're glad to have around.

To me, to decide where your heart is, you pay attention to things you want to improve, change, solve. When you want to rip something out of somebody's hands or push them out of the way and do it yourself or make it how you think it should be, that's something you care about. Things that really shit you and that you wish you yourself could do something about, they're like lights, and the shape those lights make is a passion.

Once you're following a passion, I think, you find ways to pursue it. It's not necessarily easy to pursue, but it's apparent what you need to do, and from there you can decide how you need to do it - start with small changes; make a big change, whatever. You can make progress, both because you're getting closer to what you want and because the path itself is rewarding to travel.

The other thing I'd add is, sometimes you need somebody who knows you well enough to deconstruct all the choices you've made, pick you apart, ask you some hard questions. (Ha, like a beta for your life! *g*) Because in my experience a lot of people have locked their passion away for some reason - fear, family expectations, self-image, whatever - and it's less a matter of discovering what their passion is, and more one of admitting that their passion exists.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

People keep asking you that for the same reason people keep wanting you to beta stories: You're good at asking the right questions and focusing on the heart of the matter. Like this:

To me, to decide where your heart is, you pay attention to things you want to improve, change, solve. When you want to rip something out of somebody's hands or push them out of the way and do it yourself or make it how you think it should be, that's something you care about.

This is excellent.

Because in my experience a lot of people have locked their passion away for some reason - fear, family expectations, self-image, whatever - and it's less a matter of discovering what their passion is, and more one of admitting that their passion exists.

Well, your passion is where if you fail it really matters, isn't it? I don't really care that I wasn't a very good journalist, after all.

[tevere.livejournal.com]

I have to say I've had a great run in life so far: comfortable but not extravagant middle-class childhood, scholarship to excellent high school and university, a wonderful supportive partner of some seven years and counting, good health, opportunities to travel, well-paid job.

One thing I have learnt, though, is that it's surprisingly easy to get distracted from what your direction or passion actually is. And usually that distraction's tied up in other people's expectations, or what you think you should be doing -- as opposed to what you actually want to do. I've made that mistake twice now, but I think the lesson's starting to sink in *g*. First time was when I studied engineering, because that's a "real degree" (as opposed to an arts degree); second time was when I applied for (and was offered, and accepted) an absolutely mind-bogglingly cool job, despite knowing that every single criteria for the job was the opposite of my 'natural' personality. I guess I just wanted it because it was so damn elite, and I just wanted to succeed in it because everyone had (rightly) told me that I was patently unsuited. And so here I am... paddling along in a job I personally don't love, though some would kill to have it, and all just to prove a point to people who aren't me. Foolish, hey?

On the other hand, the job pays well -- well enough that after my indentured period of service I'll have enough for The Boy and I to take two full years off to do whatever we bloody well want without fear of failure. (In my case, to write something -- anything!) It's a fair trade *g*.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

it's surprisingly easy to get distracted from what your direction or passion actually is. And usually that distraction's tied up in other people's expectations

Yep, yep. This is me going to journalism school because it's practical.

I also think that people tend to overestimate the cost (in time, money, life disruption, etc.) of changing their lives, or to think that there's only one way to do it.

It helps, actually, to get older; I have twenty years of career behind me and now I know I've got time. If I'd wanted to do something at 22, and you'd told me, "Well, you can do it but it will take seven years," I would have thrown up my hands and said, "Then what's the point? I'll just go on doing what I'm doing."

I had some more thoughts....

[myalexandria.livejournal.com]

1) Know thyself. This might seem kind of obvious -- you have to in order to know what you want to do, passion-wise -- but there are a lot of other things you need to know about yourself. The whole idea is that life is too short to be unhappy and afraid, but if you're going to work with that, you need to know what makes you unhappy. Do you need regular exposure to nature? Do you need to have a friend to introduce you around? You could make a mental list to help you figure out where you can cut corners and where you really need to invest your soon-to-be-limited resources. (All this advice assumes your passion isn't, say, computer programming or investment banking. YMMV.)

2) have a fall-back plan, but don't make it too easy to get to. I think it's helped, during my darkest days, to be aware in the back of my mind that I could always pack it all in and go home to mom and dad. I would've felt like a huge failure, but it was THERE, you know? I could joke about starving in the streets but it was never going to be a reality.

3) bathe frequently and get enough sleep. You'll feel more confident.

4) For God's sake, don't get addicted to anything. And don't let your dumbass colleagues peer-pressure you into smoking up on the job. In fact, be the kind of person who is secure enough in yourself that it is impossible to peer-pressure you into doing anything you don't really want to do. (If you are not naturally this kind of person, then act as if you thought you were, which is almost as good; the trick is to do it without appearing to be self-righteous.)

5) Understand about credit. This is another know thyself thing; I was much more conservative with my credit-card spending than I really needed to be, and I regret not blowing a little more nonexistent cash on things like travel, back in the day. But I can say that, because I'm the kind of person that would probably not ever ruin my credit, you know? It would never *occur* to me not to make at least the minimum payment every month, and it would never *occur* to me to run up a full $40,000, both of which I've seen a number of people do. I don't think I was ever over, say, $6000, even at the worst point. If you are indeed the kind of person who is likely to ruin your credit, then either cut your cards up or give them to a more responsible person who will vet your potential purchases for you. But anyway, I think a judicious amount of debt-spending is worth it -- if, say, you want to go back to school, or to move across the country or the ocean, or fund your toothpaste and groceries while you work for free for six months, or whatever. Don't do it with no plan in sight for repayment, but be willing to invest in your own future.

6) Should you find yourself in a space where things just aren't happening and you see no way forward, either shake them up in some way, or use the dead time to read Dostoevsky or lift a lot of weights or go on long walks in places where you've never been. Don't just stare at the ceiling and wish you were a more interesting person. (This is the one piece of advice I've generally been unable to follow, though I do think I'm getting a little better at it.)

7) Be very prepared to roll with the punches and to hustle a fair degree.

8) It's NEVER too late to change your life and do what you want to do. I just met this guy in his mid-sixties who lived his whole life in Buffalo. I think he sold real estate or something. Anyway, about five or six years ago he decided that what he really wanted to do was move to New York and work in wardrobe on Broadway. (He had done some wardrobe work on the side in Buffalo for tours that came through.) And he did. He lives in a tiny apartment and works like a dog and goes out to dance in gay bars, and he's happy. He's really happy.

10) Be prepared to do what's necessary to get the job done, and to take things -- and deal with them -- as they come. (In my experience, this is where most people fail; luckily it's one of the things I'm best at.)

Re: I had some more thoughts....

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

These are all terrific advice. You should write a book. (I'm not entirely joking here; you've got excellent insights.)

bathe frequently and get enough sleep. You'll feel more confident.

And exercise. I'm amazed at how fast my optimism dries up when I don't.

Should you find yourself in a space where things just aren't happening and you see no way forward, either shake them up in some way, or use the dead time to read Dostoevsky or lift a lot of weights or go on long walks in places where you've never been.

I think sometimes you just have a fallow period, a time when your task is to collect new information, or to quietly let your subconscious work on what you've already collected. In my case the difficulty is being able to tell the difference between that and just being lazy.

Re: I had some more thoughts....

[myalexandria.livejournal.com]

hee! maybe I should do a bestselling help book. Except I doubt it *would* sell, because the ones that sell all seem to be "you can follow your dreams *and* get filthy rich!"

I saw the HP movie last night and it left me with a burning desire to reread Transfigurations for the 47th time. So I'm off to do that.

Hey! You should do a HP recs post. I could use some new reading material, and I totally trust your judgment.

Re: I had some more thoughts....

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Who knows what it takes to make a self-help book sell. I'm surprised I've never seen one called Get Rich By Writing Self-Help Books!

I'm ashamed to say I'm reading so little HP -- mostly I follow lj user=painless-j>'s recs. Two recent discoveries whom I like very much are schemingreader and busaikko.

Re: I had some more thoughts....

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

It's NEVER too late to change your life and do what you want to do.

This is so true, and it's really amazing to me how hard it is to get out of the rut and change your life, especially if it doesn't suck. In my case, back in the mid-1990s I had a well-paying, moderately interesting, undemanding, but not particularly exciting job - as did my husband, although his was much more demanding - in a great place to live, with a really cool house. In 1999 we quit our jobs, sold our house and everything in it, bought a sailboat, and went cruising around the Caribbean for over three years. Taking that leap was psychologically hard, but I've never regretted it.

And now it's a lot easier for me to take leaps, to change my life. Right now my stumbling block is your #1 - I have only vague ideas of what I want to do. Ironically, I have the time and money to pursue my passions - but I'm just wandering around aimlessly. Saying "oh, I want to write!" doesn't help me much while staring at a blank Word screen!

Re: I had some more thoughts....

[myalexandria.livejournal.com]

...wow, do you still have the sailboat? want to invite me out? :)

That sounds *amazing*.

I think it's been very true for me, that once I took one big leap and it turned out to be ok, other potential big leaps just don't fill me with the same anxiety. I'm like, eh, you know what, it'll be fine, whatever happens.

[myalexandria.livejournal.com]

11) Don't expect, if you are finally in the process of fulfilling your heart's desire, to have every moment be really excellent. Make your long-term expectations high and your short-term expectations low. Keep your eyes open and take pleasure in your surroundings when possible.

11b) If, however, every moment really *is* excellent, then be extremely grateful.

12) Ask for what you want. Even if you hate asking for things.

13) But shrug and move on to the next idea if you don't get it.

14) Don't worry about being a failure. Worry about being a good person, or at least not a bad one. A bad person is always a failure; a good person is always a success.

15) Keep going, keep going, keep going. One foot in front of the other. One step at a time. Listen to everyone that's going to want to give you advice, and take the good, but above all trust your own instincts, and keep going.

16) I sometimes make decisions by thinking about my own death. If I died tomorrow, what would I want to have spent today doing? If I die at 95, what do I want to look back at my life and see?

17) Don't be afraid to have a really "boring," "small" dream/passion. If what you really want to do is read -- that's it, nothing but read -- you can probably make that work. Live extremely frugally, write a few book reviews or take in copyediting, and read. You won't be going to the opera or eating foie gras, but you'll survive. I know a few people who have never held a full-time job, who work maybe 15-20 hours a week, often from home or in their own town, and devote all their time to reading and thinking and sometimes writing. They've cut their income to the bone, but they manage. Or perhaps your dream is to be a housewife/husband, raise some really cool kids, and have a garden. Also completely doable on a very, very low budget, if you live in the right part of the country and minimize your expenses. I think a lot of people fall into the trap of thinking that in order for a life to be *really* worthwhile it has to be spectacular in some way, or that other people have to take notice of it.

18) If you are doing something, know why you're doing it. For money? For pleasure? To gain experience? So someone will owe you a favor? Knowing why you're doing things really helps maintain your mood. I mean, it's one thing to do something you really don't want to, because you really need the money and it's a tradeoff that's worth it; it's another thing to do something you don't want to only because you need the money -- if you don't actually need it. That last is *depressing*.

[indywind]

Thanks for asking this question, Res. So many wise and personal and thought-provoking answers... looking through these windows into people's lives, and the veiws are beautiful.

At bottom, my choices & compromises come from reflection about what I need, what I want, in the moment when I face the choice, and what I can predict given what I know then. I've made some choices with this thinking that didn't come out as I hoped, that were expensive or painful or frustrating or just fruitless... but I have positive feelings about even the "bad" outcomes of these self-aware choices--if nothing else, I did the best I could and I learned something from them. Looking back, I feel bad about the choices I made carelessly, because I "should" or I thought someone else wanted me to, or because I was too lazy or afraid to think about it... Even when they came out "well", I didn't feel like the success belonged to me.

Deciding where my heart is, and making time & energy to pursue it... comes out of reflection, as I said. It is important to me to note that it is a two-way process. Looking ahead, I think: I will become "the kind of person who does X" by doing X, so look for choices that allow me to act as the person I want to become, and put my energy where I want it. Looking back I think, the things I have given my time and energy to--the things that wonout in an either-or choice--are the things that have been important to me; thinking something I didn't support through choice & action was important to me is just self-delusion. Does that make sense? These became very important life-organizing principles for me, as I realized them.

A few years ago I decided I wanted to be a person in better physical shape, so I looked for opportunities to choose little changes to work toward that. Now, looking back, I can say that I have become a person who values and pursues fitness, because I run and do weight training and eat healthfully pretty consistently: evidently, that's important to me. Now, I have some interests that I can fairly say are not important to me, because when I have to choose, I don't choose to work at them. Of course, what's important to me can change at any point, based on my situational choices.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I think those little changes are more important than most people think.

I used to read stuff by an educator online; when parents were worried about a weak area in the school their kid went to, she'd tell them, "If the school is basically sound, you can supplement; get a tutor, enroll them in summer classes, whatever." So now I sometimes think like that about my life: maybe I don't need to change everything; maybe I just need to supplement.

Gosh, you do ask the hard questions, don't you?

[tofty.livejournal.com]

It's pretty easy for me to pinpoint my location, as regards the heart question; my loves are quietly expressed, and I come to them cautiously, but they stay with me, and they're deep. And once I do love something, it's fairly easy for me to make time for it. I don't have much trouble setting my personal priorities to include things I really love -- but I think that's one of the advantages of the single life I live, that I have the time to shoulder responsibilities and pursue passions, without feeling that I'm sacrificing one to the other. (It helps that one of my passions is my house, too; it makes maintenance and restoration tasks more hobby than chore.)

I'm working on my second career (IT) now, occasionally toying with trying on a third. Neither of my careers is the career I picked out for myself fairly early in life and began pursuing when I started college, which is architecture. And even though I still adore architecture and design, for the most part I'm okay with my career choices, and I'm satisfied with pursuing my architectural passions as a layperson.

I've lived in many places scattered in several cities, and found something to love in each place, and each place housed a piece of my life that was easily distinguishable from other pieces. But for me, honestly, it's felt like one long road. I feel my life as not as a series of discrete destinations, with endings and new starts, but as a single long trip, you know? I have my constants -- me, my parents, my pets, a handful of very dear friends, a few possessions and pursuits I cannot imagine doing without -- and those constants, whatever else is part of my life, keep me anchored down. Those things are all I need to give me a feeling of continuity.

That's not to say that my life hasn't been full of bad judgment calls, though. I have tendencies in myself which I've had to learn the hard way to monitor, because if I allow them to run unchecked in me they'll lead to disaster: I procrastinate, I'm avoidant, I abhor any sort of conflict or drama and can therefore be passive-agressive; and most of the failures in my life can be traced back to one (or more) of those tendencies. I've clung to relationships long past the possibility of any sort happy ending. I've enmired myself so deeply avoiding minor unpleasantries that only my parents' intervention kept me from ruining my life completely. I've put off things I didn't want to do until I felt like an eight-year-old boy, spending three times as much time and energy trying to avoid taking a bath as I'd have spent just taking the damned bath and being done with it. And so I try to look out for these things, and recognize when they're leading me into trouble, and do something about them. I don't always succeed, but when I fail, I try to fix things as best I can, and try to accept responsibility for the things I can't fix.

Because my best life is an easy life and a quiet one, I compromise on little things all the time, so I don't have to compromise on the big ones; it's easier for me to tell you the issues I tend not to compromise on: I need autonomy; I need a fair amount of solitude; I need a life that is largely free of unnecessary conflict; I need a place to live that I love; I need to be able to count on the people I keep around me; I need a job that challenges me, supports my low-key lifestyle, and does not make me miserable. I think everything else is negotiable.

I've learned that it's possible to pursue your passions down unconventional paths; and that the rewards you receive from pursuing them need not be tangible, or recognizable to anyone but you, to make you happy. I've learned not to apologize for being who and what I am unless the apology is warranted.

But mostly I've learned that these answers are entirely subjective. Knowing this has helped me (as I've grown to understand that someone else's solutions might not work for me) to come to terms with some of my more unconventional choices, and with the fact that others might not recognize that for me they really are successes.

Re: Gosh, you do ask the hard questions, don't you?

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

This confirms the impression of you that I have from your LJ posts: that you're a person who's experiencing your life as a whole, not chopped up into little tiny pieces like the departments of a women's magazine (Career! Money! Relationships!) and trying to make each individual piece perfect.

I need to remind myself of this sometimes, because I tend to wrap everything up in a career the way the girls in the romance novels sometimes wrap everything up in a man. And sometimes the solution is a new job, but sometimes it's a walk in the park or a weekly lunch with a friend.

I seriously thought this was going to be two paragraphs long :(

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

Thanks for asking these questions-- I'm putting this post in my Memories.

I'm just starting out as an adult (I'll turn 21 in October), so I'm grateful for the advice, too! I think I've learned one thing already-- this has been mentioned above, but it's been fascinating for me to hear how various people came to the same kind of revelation through different paths. So I'll try to write it out in case someone else recognizes herself, or part of herself.

When I was growing up, my sense of self, happiness, and personal accomplishment were all levered upon my intellect. (One of those classic good-at-school, ignored-or-teased-by-other-kids cases.) Because I fantasized about the future as a way out of my sadness, and because my mother was a really promising writer and academic (accepted to graduate school at Oxford, published a novel at 23) who gave up her career to have a family, I made an automatic connection between personal accomplishment and professional success. I didn't even think, like, "I'll be happy when I am a professional academic or writer," for me that kind of narrow professional success in a field-whose-identity-you-were-bound-up-with was completely synonymous with happiness.

Getting to college meant I had a peer-group of friends for the first time in my life (*) and I changed a lot almost overnight: I marveled at how happy I was, how my new life was filling needs I hadn't entirely known I had! I spent the first two years of college in this off-campus dorm mostly inhabited by self-identified geeks and gamers, a subculture I was already sort of fluent in from fandom. I had a lot of fun, but I eventually found myself getting lonelier and lonelier and longing for people who would talk about literature and feminism and philosophy with me (**). So the next year I decided, sort of haphazardly, to move off campus to live with another friend-- and it's been one of the best things in my life, living with her, running a household together. We're good at propelling each other forward and at creating things together; at talking through one another's problems and interests and learning from each other. I've been my best self as a student, a self, and a friend since I moved in with her. Just like before, I'm getting fed in ways I didn't know I was hungry for.

Okay, boring personal backstory almost over-- the point of revelation came last semester when I'd been on a medication whose side effects made me unable to think, call up vocabulary, or take care of myself. I was doing terribly in my classes (I spent hours uselessly toying with overdue papers) and even basic decisions like "should I eat breakfast before going to work?" left me confused and exhausted. Most of all, any writing was beyond me. I'd never struggled that much with finding words or fitting ideas into rhetorical frameworks; this month-long depression was making me question the professional identity I'd lived with for as long as I could remember. If this never went away, I couldn't be a writer or a thinker for a living. If this never went away, I'd have to find a whole new way to organize my life. At the same time, I was applying for summer internships with big publishing houses, and as I got rejected over and over I panicked more and more: even the pre-depression self on my resume wasn't good enough! What was I going to do? If I couldn't work with literature, how could I think about myself?

I noticed, though, that even in my most aphasic state of mind I could still be startled into happiness by a friend's joke, or by eating the beautiful dinner my housemate and I had cooked, or doing someone else a favor. I realized that even if I never made money writing in my life, my life would still have meaning, sustained pleasure. I started thinking for the first time about all the jobs I might pursue that have nothing to do with writing or editing or academia: social worker, electrician, nurse. I realized that anything that connects me with other people, does some good, and lets me use my hands will make me happy, and that the real ecstasy of my life is going to come from my relationships, not my career.

Re: I seriously thought this was going to be two paragraphs long :(

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

The depression lifted a few weeks after I stopped taking the medicine (thank GOD) and I was able to turn in all my papers for that semester. I'm back to thinking about publishing as the main career I want to shoot for, but I feel like that decision is being made, now, on a much solider foundation. If it doesn't work out, I can find something else-- lots of somethings else-- that will make me just as happy. And if my writing never finds a more significant outlet than my LJ, well, that's true of a lot of writers better than I, and it doesn't diminish their accomplishments. It would be more awesome to succeed as a professional writer, but it won't kill me if I don't.





(*) I homeschooled through 7th to 12th grade; it was pretty awesome, intellectually (again, that was all I thought was available for me), but it meant I skipped the getting-to-make-friends-with-fellow-misfits thing I hear happens in high school. I hung out on the internet, though-- actually, TableTalk-- actually, I knew you on TableTalk, although not very well!

(**) um, which is not to say all geeks are the sort of people who would rather play board games than talk about feminism-- I know better than that, I'm in fandom!-- but my friends really were.

Re: I seriously thought this was going to be two paragraphs long :(

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I realized that even if I never made money writing in my life, my life would still have meaning, sustained pleasure. I started thinking for the first time about all the jobs I might pursue that have nothing to do with writing or editing or academia: social worker, electrician, nurse. I realized that anything that connects me with other people, does some good, and lets me use my hands will make me happy, and that the real ecstasy of my life is going to come from my relationships, not my career.

This is a great insight, and one of the things myalexandria was talking about in her "know thyself" section.

Did you have the same name on TT? I only remember a handful of names, but I miss the place often.

[viggorlijah.livejournal.com]

Po Bronson has a pretty good book I think what should i do with my life? that is basically interviews with people who are following their passions. I liked the catfish farmer guy *g*

My husband for years has been trying to find a passion. For a bunch of reasons out of his hands, he couldn't go into academia, and had to go into journalism. Now he's doing book projects and really likes it, but I think it's more that his workstyle is under six months. He gets bored after that. He's sort of a firefighter-style.

I like things I can pick up, work on, then put down. When it can't be done that way and needs regularity, I'm starting to just hire or find someone else to do that regular stuff. It is probably a giant personality flaw, but fighting it in the past ten years hasn't worked, while a housekeeper and assistant has, so to hell with it.

I prioritize based on need, so lots of short urgent deadlines help. And right now it's kids, husband (he has the same priority list!), riverkids, work, my stuff.

I've given up full-time writing, taken leave from uni two years now, and we still haven't unpacked after six months BUT the most important things on that list are getting done.

It helps that I always knew I wanted to write. I enjoy my 'day' job, corporate writing and stuff, as a technical exercise, and Riverkids - we stumbled into this completely, and I kinda like the research, and the networking (I hate networking per se, but I love meeting interesting people, and in this field, almost everyone is interesting) and I've been really fortunate in that I cannot let these kids down.

That means I can't let my own self-doubt and guilts run riot like they do for my own internal stuff. I just have to admit 'I can't get that done in time, or as well, I need help'. And that's starting to spill over to other stuff better.

ASK FOR HELP. Ask, ask, ask. Don't demand help, expect lots of No's, and so on, but ask. Figure out why you're afraid to ask and solve that.

I am not passionate about child trafficking or Cambodia. These are things that found me, and I'm - how could I walk away? I am passionate about my kids, books and certain political things, but I'm willing to put those things on hold. I guess what I mean to say is -

don't follow your passion irresponsibly. I don't mean irresponsible to unfair expectations and so on, but don't sacrifice your kids, huge amounts of money - start small. You have your whole life to follow that passion, and I've seen people use a passion as an excuse to not be decent people. Grandmas are worth more than a sonnet because there WILL BE more poetry!

Be honest with yourself, don't pretend you don't love something, figure out your shortcomings and bad habits, and if you can't fix em internally, find an external fix.

You have so much time to DO stuff. The important part is who you ARE. You don't have time to wait to be a decent person. I wish i had know that ages ago.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

When it can't be done that way and needs regularity, I'm starting to just hire or find someone else to do that regular stuff. It is probably a giant personality flaw

I wouldn't call it that. Nobody can be good at everything, and it's really useful to recognize your weak spots and compensate for them in some way. If I had to do a job that was all short urgent deadlines, I'd be a basket case in a week.

don't sacrifice your kids, huge amounts of money - start small. You have your whole life to follow that passion, and I've seen people use a passion as an excuse to not be decent people.

To put this another way, a lot of people overestimate how much it will cost to follow a passion -- cost them or their families, cost in money or time or stress -- because they're thinking too short-term. I can already see that the time you have a child living with you is pretty short on a lifetime scale, so you can work around it. (And some people really seriously just should not have kids; if you can look at yourself honestly and say, "No, I can't have more than one priority; this one thing has to come first no matter who gets in the way," then it would be a kindness to the world not to reproduce.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

Wow, you put this really well.

[j-bluestocking.livejournal.com]

Years ago, in the days of my youth, I was working in a word processing center, alongside a lot of other people who weren't making a lot of money. A middle-aged, outspoken, blue-collar African-American woman sat behind me; we didn't have a lot in common, but we'd talk to pass the time and amuse ourselves. One day she asked, "What would you be, if you couldn't be a writer?"

And this is something that's happened to me a few times in life -- that is, someone asks a question, and you do a kind of lightning-fast, nonverbal overview, and come up with an answer you may not have known you had. In this case, a great many things flew through my mind: how I'd enjoyed anthropology in college, the possibilities in experimental psychology as a career, history -- and I said, "Nothing."

"Oh," she said darkly. "You're one of those."

So I guess I'm what katallison, above, calls a hedgehog. This often makes me un-useful when less hedgehoggy people talk to me about vocation. Having said this, I believe that, monomaniacal though I am, if I could live long enough, I'd happily explore all sort of paths. Because they are in fact there. I believe most people have far more potential in them for moving in different directions than they give themselves credit for.

I don't think someone can seek out a passion in the sense of an obsession; obsessions seek you out. But people can, well, choose their own adventures. Richard Feynman liked to learn new skills simply because he enjoyed learning new skills -- painting, playing musical instruments; and he and a friend once chose a small eastern European town at random, learned all they could about it, made it their hobby, and one day, years later, managed a trip behind the then-collapsed Iron Curtain to visit the place. There is joy in such things, and hedgehog though I am, I regret I can't live a sufficient number of centuries to experiment with the roads not taken.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

"Oh," she said darkly. "You're one of those."

I love this!

Writing, though, is an inherently foxish calling, I think -- you're always telling stories, but the stories are always different.

[celli]

I'm really lucky, I think, to have two passions: writing and accounting. (I feel bad for leaving acting out, since it dominated my life from 12 to 19, but it's faded from passion to interest now.)

I fell in love with both by accident. Writing was in college, the first time I started to write fanfic and realized how much awesome fun it was. The bad thing about writing for me, though, was that to make it work as a career, you have to be *so* self-disciplined and focused, and I was neither of those things in my teens and early 20s. I spent a lot of time telling people I was trying to make a career out of writing, without actually doing any of the work on it. After I failed so spectacularly at a TV writing career, I came home with my tail between my legs and didn't write for a long, long time. I still get all clenched up and freaked out if I try to write anything that might possibly be saleable. All those expectations start to press down on me again, and it's very stressful. I figure as long as I keep writing something I do for fun and for my friends, and remind myself that I don't have to make any money from it, maybe one of these days I'll be able to crank out a novel. Because I'd still love to be published/produced, I just need to not make myself crazy in the process.

Accounting is something I never ever expected to like, or to be any good at. I was always just getting by in math, and I had no head for money. (A family trait.) But when I came home in disgrace from LA, I took a part-time job doing taxes just to pay some bills and give me some breathing room while I figured out the rest of my life. Imagine my shock when I was actually really good at it, and really enjoyed being good at it.

I get gently teased about it all the time, because I really am an accounting/taxes fangirl. I am happy to go to work in the morning and have a day of playing with numbers ahead of me. I love giving people financial advice and helping them see what they can do for themselves if they take their money situation seriously. I love being the person my friends come to for advice about their taxes. And the cherry on top of the career sundae for me is that I actually make a good living and have a substantial amount of job security--nothing I'd ever experienced before in all the admin jobs I took while I was a starving writer.

I made tons of mistakes along the way--usually in not setting realistic goals and not understanding that I had to make the effort for things to go my way. I used to wait a lot for the perfect opportunity to fall in my lap. My new mindset is to take one step every day that will have a positive impact on my career--whether it's improving the way we do something at work, or studying something career-related on the side. But, you know, I can't regret the times I screwed up and made bad choices in the past, because I don't learn well from other people telling me their mistakes. I have to go make the mistake myself. *Then* I remember not to do that no more. *g*

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I took a part-time job doing taxes just to pay some bills and give me some breathing room while I figured out the rest of my life. Imagine my shock when I was actually really good at it, and really enjoyed being good at it.

This is really excellent, and I envy you. I'm a very good secretary, but I hate being good at it. (My mother is a good bookkeeper -- or are bookkeepers now accountants? -- and ditto.)