My life has been just that lately; consumed by busy.
Here's a taste of my schedule.
- Punch in and out at work
- Rush to yoga
- Grab groceries, rush home, cook and eat.
- Hop on my bike to find a workplace, work on the ever growing list of things to accomplish till 12am/1am.
- Get home to spend a couple hours on tumblr, fastco, brainpickings, twitter, fb, wechat, pinterest...whatever
- Fall asleep around 2:30am.
Do you want to know what has been my savior?
Early mornings. Yes, this coming from someone who used to be the WORST morning person ever.
I wake up around 6:30am to be able to do things I want to do before work.
I make breakfast (and I'm getting good at it), or I ride to get breakfast bagels from my fave bagel shop.
I read something worthy and captivating.
I try to leave the house with some new knowledge.
This whole new routine feels SO good.
I am pretty exhausted, but when I'm not exhausted I feel shitty for being lazy. I'm guilty of jam packing my days, I'm guilty of not seeing many people as of late, I'm guilty of drinking too much coffee lately, I'm guilty of not calling home as much as I should be right now (Will do it right after this blog post).
Being proactive in the morning and spending time with me and my interests has been so incredibly important during a time where I am working on a bunch of projects and starting to look for a new fulltime job. Where you may ask? Who knows. But the BEST BEST BEST BEST thing that has come out of China, and freelance and a desk job I don't necessarily love has been clarity of where to go next, and not geographically.
What's against me? The fact that I have spent all my time developing a professional resume based on political and international relations work, to find myself wanting to be in a much different arena; an environment that compliments my calling and my abilities.
And so I need to convince my interviewers; hire character over qualifications.
I do this thing where I play scenarios in my head over and over again. I develop the type of dialogue I would like to take place with this given person. I've had a hard time developing this dialogue lately. "Why such an abrupt career transition?" I know this to be a question that will undoubtly come up.
When you're young and you're book smart, and you get good grades, you're led to believe that you meant to do great things....in the fields of medicine, law, politics etc.
I'M JUST TRYING TO DO WHAT I SHOULD HAVE BEEN DOING ALL ALONG. I JUST DIDN'T KNOW. I DIDN'T KNOW THAT I DIDN'T WANT TO PRACTICE LAW OR BE INVOLVED IN IR. JUST BECAUSE I AM GOOD AT THIS JOB, ISN'T A GOOD ENOUGH REASON FOR ME TO STAY, TO DO THIS, TO FEEL LIKE MY WORK IS MEDIOCRE.
As I preached a million times before, there are too many mediocre things in life, don't let yourself be one of them.
And so you have two paths.
1) Accept a contract extension, take an offer at home, take the job that pays you well, do what you've been doing all along- why waste the hard work and dedication already put in? (natural easy progression that will allow you to attain a fancy home in your twenties.)
2) Any work that brought you here was no waste. It was all so pivotal in bringing you here and now. Giving you clarity. It gave you the opportunity to be where you are now. It was a learning curve. You took a look at a world and realized you don't want to be part of it and there is nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, wrong with that. It may mean less money in the short run, it may mean a change of habits for a little bit, it may mean insecurity, but ultimately, and I don't know this to be 100% true, you will be happier if you listen to your gut.
And therein lies the biggest challenge, finding someone who believes in me as much as I believe in me.
I said to a close friend recently, you have to believe in yourself more than anyone else. You have to believe that you're capable. The main factor being courage. Have enough of it to make a call to an agency who would never look at your resume if they had not heard from you, have enough to apply for a role that you have zero qualifications for on paper, have enough of it to invest in your ideas. Be forward-thinking, but be present. Be smart and wise, but don't be skeptical to push the envelope. Believe that you don't have it in you to fail.
And so you ask why do I jam pack my days? Why do I deprive myself of sleep? Why not enjoy being a twenty-five year old who spends evenings at happy hours and Saturdays in bed? Well, I'm cultivating a work ethic that will not allow me to fail, while simultaneously enjoying a happy hour here and there. I'm living just as much as anyone else. Trust me, I have fun, but sometimes, I rather spend the night working because I like what it does for me more than a hangover.
If you set the appropriate preconditions for yourself, I truly believe that everything will work out in the end.
And a note to my younger self:
- Don't take it lightly when someone tells you that it's just as important to express your creative side, as it is your intellectual side. You can actually combine those, please don't neglect and favor one over the other.
- Plan all you want, but plans are just that. You are growing and you are changing, and law school is probably not for you.
- Listen to your gut.
- You won't always be simply happy. It's okay to be a little sad and thrown off sometimes, it is often these feelings that gas you up for the biggest accomplishments in your life.
- Buy the damn shoes, always buy the damn shoes.
- If you find an opportunity, even if it's in China, TAKE IT.
