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

[jenna-thorn.livejournal.com]

I'm not anywhere near what I thought I would be. From the outside, I must seem like a radically different person than I once was, and yet, in hindsight, the path I took to get here is trampled to the dirt, so while I can see where I could have gone elsewhere, I can very clearly see how I got to where I am.

I may have gotten lost in that metaphor. I should use maps and signposts more than I do. I wonder if anyone has thought to market a GPS for illustrative language?

I don't know that I have figured out yet where my heart is, quite honestly. I've made decisions based on where and who I was at the time, and while yeah, I look back and cringe on some (okay, to be honest, more than a few) of them, I don't know that I could stand up and point to any one point in my life and say "Okay, that milepost. Self, don't marry the SoB. Turn right, not left." Because that (ghastly) experience taught me humility and empathy and that grandmother is right when no one expects her to be. Which is twice ironic, as my first marriage is held up as an example in our family, second only to grandmother's third and fourth marriages. What can I say? I come by emotional and social inadequacies naturally.

And yet, my expression of that learned humility tends to take form in ways that reflect my life prior to the turning point. So I'm still the same sarcastic, thread-twining, heavy-hipped, hedonistic cat-loving, librarian at heart.

Maybe it's because I'm still in the middle of living my life, but I remember too well the reasons behind the compromises I've made (and on the other hand, the times I've stood and said "Enough. No more.") so I don't regret them, not exactly. Another twenty years from now, I may be able to look back on my own life objectively, but not yet. I've not reached a point high enough for a vista, maybe.

Then again, I could be eighty and feel the same way.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I wonder if anyone has thought to market a GPS for illustrative language?

Probably not, or else presidential speeches and small-town newspaper articles would be very different.

How you feel about your marriage is kind of how I feel about journalism school -- a colossal waste, and in my case also proof of a really serious lack of self-knowledge, but on the other hand, I couldn't be where/who I am if I hadn't done it.