Lately, I have been discovering A LOT of, "this is definitely what I do not want to be doing with my life" thinking. As valuable as it is to know what does not work for oneself, I began to wonder if I was ever going to figure out what did work? I have the pieces but the puzzle still was not fitting together how I thought it should. This all came to a head last week, the night before my biology midterm. It is not easy to study genetics when you are working through a life crisis!
The past 5 years I have been diving into a state of cerebral madness, attempting to figure out my life. Often I had a new idea or I was inspired by what someone else was doing, but nothing seemed to stick. The past month this madness intensified. This was it, time to quit messing around and make a decision. I made appointments with the career counselor, created lists of career options, weighed the pros and cons of each, the length of the program, job satisfaction, salary, were these jobs location specific, etc... I contacted schools, and programs, interviewed people and read books. Pure madness I tell you!
Amongst this fury, sitting down to study for my biology midterm was nothing short of painful. When I don't know what else to do, I bake. So it began. Researching recipes and attempting to push away thoughts of "I should be studying." At that point I was too far gone to retain information on Mendel's law of assortment anyway. Beet cake it is! No sooner had I turned on the oven, the phone rang.
"Hi," a friendly voice said on the line. After the 'hellos and how do you do's,' we got to the good stuff. I expressed my distress over figuring out what to do with my life, and the response was, "I go to the school of life!" Followed by an explanation of what has worked best for them- having jobs that gave them skills they enjoyed doing and that could be applied to life. Working on vehicles, fishing, construction, etc... Hearing about this approach planted a seed. The conversation was finished by a simple, make the cake. Click.
Okay, I had two choices, study or make a cake. At that moment I decided I was going to make the cake, and I was going to do it guilt free. So I did. I spent the rest of the evening a crafting a marvellously, delicious beet cake. I was happy with the process, and the results.
Moral of the story... Following my intuition rather than tradition has been my rock. My intuition is where I find the faith that guides me. I became so consumed with the tradition, and practicality of a job, I lost my grounding. My fear of 'failure'
worked itself into unexpected places where I did not want it to
be. I am learning as I go along to catch these fears before they take over. I am
once again humbled, being reminded I am not alone.
