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Tell me about yourself.
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?
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?
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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.
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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.)
no subject