Why Am I Doing This?

Growing up, I always wanted to do something that involved creativity.  Sometimes I was a dancer, an artist, a writer, or an actress.  I was never business minded and the business world never held any interest for me.  I enjoyed thinking outside the box and exercising my originality. 

Then, the inevitable happened…

We see it all the time.  We make decisions that we think are going to be a temporary fix until we can do what we really want to set out to do, but before we know it, we’re stuck in a rut.  A great example of this is a job.  When I first started out on my own, I took a job as a bank teller, completely confident that I was only going to do this until I decided what I really wanted to do as a career.  It paid the bills and wasn’t a bad gig for someone right out of high school.  I had time to decide, or so I thought.

Time went on and life kept bringing new challenges (good and bad) into my life.  For me, it was marriage, kids, divorce…and even though I wasn’t a bank teller anymore, I was still in the business world, building upon a resume that wasn’t me.  It was like fitting a square block into a circle.  It felt forced, but I kept going because now, it was all I knew.

I had lost who I was, and in the process, lost my passion for…everything!  I had dedicated 20 years of my life to jobs that I never enjoyed; jobs that never gave me personal satisfaction.  Don’t get me wrong, I like doing a good job on a project and taking pride in my work, but I felt empty. 

Recently, I was having a conversation with my boyfriend about our jobs.  He talked about how much he enjoyed his job as a parasail captain and that he loved going to work every day.  As he talked, I thought about how I felt about my job.  I told him that I had never experienced that kind of joy about my work, so he asked me what type of job I would want to do.  I hadn’t thought about that in years, and actually struggled to even think of anything!  I told him that I wanted to write, so here I am…writing!  And loving it!

When I decided to start this blog, I hoped to accomplish two things.  The first was that my blog would fulfill my desire for a creative outlet, and the second would be to help other women.  We all need emotional support, and we all want someone to empathize and understand what we’re going through.  While all of our experiences are not the same, we’ve caught ourselves reading articles and blogs and thought, “Hey!  Been there, done that!” 

We spend so much of our lives working in some way, shape, or form.  While for most of us, it’s a necessary evil, why not choose something that fulfills us too?  I challenge you to ask yourself, “Am I living the life that I want to live?”  If not, maybe it’s time to do something about it.  I am.