I know what it is like not to know what I want for my life. I came into the world with lots of choices. Every time I took an aptitude test, there were so many things the test told me would suit me as a profession. I always scored high in writing, art, and music, which is really good since I am a singer/songwriter, author, and artist. I also scored high in counseling, middle management, nursing, teaching, college administration, and truck driving. While the last one invariably gives me a chuckle, I have to confess that I like long-distance highway travel, although I don't have the best sense of direction. Still, I have driven across the United States from Orlando, Florida to Seattle, Washington (roughly 3600 miles or 5800 kilometers), with only my two cats for company. I'd like the solitude of such an occupation, although it is one I'm not likely ever to adopt.
I'm a little too squeamish for nursing. I nearly fainted once at the sight of my own blood, though I keep my head in an emergency where other people are concerned. All the other occupations for which I am well suited and find interesting, I have done at one time or another in this lifetime. Well, except for college administration, and there's still time for that. I've engaged in teaching and counseling since I was seventeen. I'm a published author and poet, as well as a singer/songwriter with one music CD released to date. So I have accomplished a thing or two in my life because I figured out along the way that I wasn't going to be one of those people who is singularly focused on one chosen profession. Although I wouldn't call myself a jack of all trades, I do have lots of choices in how I spend my days. That in itself has been a bit of a handicap because of having to figure out what I'm going to do when and where and for how long. Once I realized that the answer for me wasn't necessarily that I would do this or that, but that I must do everything at once, life choices became a little easier, if no less complicated.
While I was working full time in middle management, I was also writing novels. When I took a short hiatus from that, I spent a month doing what I needed to do to make a music CD with my brother. During another period of time, I taught a writer's workshop and also a couple of tarot reading workshops. When I was forced to leave my middle management job in 2008 because of store closures, I started my own publishing house in order to gain greater control over my existing published works, as well as release a new novel and a collection of my poetry. Now I have taken a job where I am earning enough of a living to pay the bills, so I can carry on writing and working on music more. Trust me when I say it would be easier to work on just on thing at a time, but that doesn't seem to be what my life is going to be like.
So how did I reach a place where I actually began to make inroads towards my dreams and goals? Essentially I spent my free time doing the things I loved--writing songs and poems, singing, and playing my guitar. When I reached a place of stasis, I listened to my intuition, which was telling me to go to graduate school. Somehow I knew that I needed more intellectual and creative input, so I enrolled in a masters program that had magically appeared a few months before at the local university. When I reached this decision to go back to school, I didn't even know about the graduate program that had started the semester before. As the adage states, "when the student is ready, the teacher will appear." In my case, perhaps because I never do only one thing at once, the teacher(s) appeared. I had many wonderful, inspiring teachers, each of whom gave me a piece of what I needed to take the next creative step, which was writing my first novel.
When this occurred I wasn't even aware that I was going to write a novel. It was simply my practice to journal on a regular basis. Most of the time, I journaled things like you read in my blogs--thoughts about what I'm reading, metaphysics, or life experiences. On this one particular day, just a couple of months after I had started graduate school for the explicitly stated objective of "jump-starting my creative juices," I sat down with a brand new blank book and started writing. 48 hours later, I closed the now full book and took a breather. My journaling had turned into a fictional diary of a teenage girl. I had no intention of writing a work of fiction when I opened that book and began to write. I simply started writing and couldn't stop. This journal became part one of a book I eventually used as my masters project in order to secure my masters degree. Part two of
The Diary of Allie Katz, was written in a period of just over three weeks.
While this book has yet to be published (even I know it needs a huge rewrite!), it taught me that I could write much longer works of fiction than I had ever attempted before. I honestly had never even considered such a thing, even though I had written a few short stories. I was a singer/songwriter. I had been playing the guitar since I was twelve, writing songs since I was thirteen, and had only recently discovered that I was an okay poet as well. Although I recognized the talent I had in music, though I've never had a day of formal training, I had no idea I would ever become a published novelist or poet. By listening to my intuition about getting creatively "unstuck," a huge door opened to me creatively. A door that eventually opened the door further for my music as well. My first published novel was about a lesbian singer/songwriter. Of course, I had to release a companion music CD to accompany this novel.
In part one of this blog series, we talked about removing roadblocks to the life you want by beginning to live without complaining. In part two, while you weren't paying attention, I gave you two more steps (in no specific order) to removing life's roadblocks. One was listening to your intuition. Your Higher Self knows what you need to move forward in your life. All you have to do is heed that advice. If you don't know what that advice is, it is because you aren't listening. Get quiet and listen for the still, small voice to guide you. No, not the one that tells you to go eat a pint of chocolate ice cream. The one that says, "why don't you enroll in that art class you keep pondering in the newspaper?" Or "why don't you get out your camera and start taking pictures of those sunsets you keep oohing and aahing over?"
The other step is to use your free time from whatever is paying your bills, or occupying the main part of your day, to engage in your hobbies and passions. What activity do you like to do that makes you forget that there is a clock ticking, or at least makes you want to forget about the clock? If you know that you don't want to spend the rest of your life working for someone else, or you feel as though something is missing from your life, then figure out what it is that really makes your heart sing. Chances are, you already know what that is. So why aren't you at least doing it a little bit? Maybe you won't be able to quit your job now or ever and do what you want to do full time, but you'll never know until you try. You'll never even know if you'd really enjoy doing that all the time if you don't do it at least some of the time.
So stand before the mirror and ask yourself, "What makes my heart sing?" If you don't know, then you may need to spend some time in quiet reflection, thinking back to a time and place (childhood perhaps?) when you were inexplicably happy. Whatever it is you were doing at the time, try doing it again and see how it feels to you now. If it is lackluster, then keep observing yourself to see when you are happiest throughout the day. Once you know what makes your heart sing, make a pact with yourself to do it as often as you can. Sneak it in whenever and wherever you have an available moment. I suspect that as you take action to make time to do it, more time will become available for it. After all, what you focus on will expand. You've stopped complaining about the stuff in your life you don't like, so now start focusing on the stuff you do like.
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