Finding what you love is a lot like moving

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Last week, we talked about time management and how planning too much can be your downfall.  Maybe you read this and thought, "This is all well, but I'm not even sure what I'm doing actually is what I want to do." Maybe you felt slightly jealous of those people who are able to get so caught up in something they end up losing tack of everything else.  You shouldn't because finding what you love is a lot like moving.  Allow me to clarify.

Homeowners

Some people are very lucky in the sense that they seem to be born with a passion.  We all know this one guy who dreamed of joining the army since grade 4 and grew up to do just that.  For those people, there is no doubt possible.  This passion of theirs is like the perfect house. If you found the house of your dreams and had the certainty that you were never going to leave it, you would naturally unpack all your things.  You wouldn't mind investing time and money in the house because you'd know without a doubt that you were adding value to the place while making it your own.  People who know they've found their calling act the same way.  They apply all the knowledge they have (they "unpack") to thrive doing what they love.  They invest time and money in their craft (regardless of its nature) because they know they are becoming better at what they do and will have added value in their field.

This doesn't mean the "homeowner" have it easy and never feel doubt, but the path is clearer for them.  For most of us, however, the real estate hunt for passion takes longer.

Tenants

Imagine you were looking for a place but didn't have a clear idea of what you needed or wanted.  It would take you much more time finding a place you deemed decent; you might choose something following a friend's or relative's suggestion.  You might decide on something convenient although it doesn't really seem right for you.  Once settled, you probably wouldn't unpack everything, feeling that you might move again, yet, you would probably invest just enough to make the place comfortable.  You'd then find yourself stuck in the following conundrum: I'm not very fond of this place, but I've spent money and time on it, so I feel bad leaving.  The thought of looking for a new place probably would also be very daunting.  Now transpose this idea to your hobby, passion or craft.  Many people who are unsure of what they want to do end up trying things that don't really make them happy, but because they've made a time investment, they don't want to stop.  It takes time, but usually they do end up quitting, just like an unsatisfied tenant will eventually pack up his things and try to look for another place, in hopes it will be the one.

Now there's another type of passion seeking tenant, and that's the one who thinks he knows what he wants.  This is the type of person who falls in love with flats without even looking around much.  They move in, unpack everything (even the paper mache sculpture from grade 3) and start decorating right away.  They have great plans and invest a lot of time and money in the place.  Unfortunately, after a few months, they realize that the place isn't exactly what they thought it was.  They rapidly stop investing and start looking for a new flat.  They move often.  Those people are those who, upon finding a new hobby, activity, passion or craft, just hit the ground running.  They buy every possible tool even remotely necessary for the craft and invest huge amounts of money and time.  They do so because they feel that this time, they've found the thing that makes them feel alive.  Unfortunately, they are discouraged at the first difficulty and soon abandon.

Moving wisely

Of course, the above are extreme examples, and many people combine characteristics from the two 

tenants.  I also failed to mention the people who don't care to find what they want or don't even care to know what it is in the first place.  However, what unites those who try is the embarrassment or shame felt when having to admit abandoning whatever it is they had invested time in because it just didn't turn out to be what they thought it would.  This mindset is dangerous because it can lead people to stop searching.

We all want to be like the "homeowners" and find that one thing that makes us vibrate with life, but the truth is most of us will be tenants for a while before we can get where we want to be.  And there is no shame in that at all.  Better do something and fail (I wouldn't even call it failing, most of the time) than letting life pass you by on easy mode.  It takes courage to recognize we were wrong and strength to try something new but in the long run, we acquire knowledge and experience we will be able to put to good use once we've found our true calling.  

Knowledge is like the things you have in your living space.  The more things you own, the longest it takes to pack when you have to move.  As a result, when you move you go through your possession and get rid of what you don't really need, only keeping the essential.  The more you move, the more you declutter and the more you do, the more what you own is useful and valuable.  Homeowners, however, don't need to do that, so they accumulate a lot of useless things (thing of your parents' house).  I'm not saying that people who know exactly what they want have tons of useless knowledge, but they definitely don't have to do a regular inventory of what clutters their head. Also, trying different things makes you more flexible, a better adaptability to chance. You see, it's not so bad being a tenant.

Remember that there is no shame in trying new things as there is no shame in looking for a new flat.  Avoid the extremes and keep decluttering.  Eventually, you'll find the perfect "house," and you'll be glad your mind's cartons are only filled with the things you really need.

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Planning yourself to failure

Regardless of the type of art that makes you feel alive, if it's something you do on top of work and family obligations, you have to come up with a plan.  If you're serious about  your craft, you need to find a way to fit it in your busy schedule.  Long story short, you need planning.

This is common sense, nothing more, and an advice readily available on every blog that addresses the topic of "following your dreams."  So why do I even bother to talk about it? Because it's dangerous.  Don't be too quick to scoff.  Over planning can be like paving your way to failure.

You've all experience a sudden spur of motivation for your project.  This time, it's going to be different.   This time, you will plan carefully and follow that plan (unlike last time...)  You're convinced that the secret to success is a mix discipline and dedication.  And so you carefully build that perfect schedule (Google calendar makes it so easy!  And just look at all the colours, so pretty!)  It's so magnificent it makes you feel like you could be hired to manage Stephen Harper's agenda (not that you'd want to...)  Everything is calculated, balanced, thought out. 

Your beautiful clockwork schedule

You hit the ground running and start following you schedule religiously.  It works great and you're sure the elation you feel warrants your success. Secretly, you feel invincible and  mock the silly mortals that aren't in to the big plan. *snicker, snicker, snicker*

A week passes, maybe two, and everything goes according to plan.  The kids are clean and fed, the chores are taken care of, you're doing great at work and your project is on a roll.  You're on a high.  You're so glad you planned; you can't understand how you lived without your clockwork schedule until now.  Two more weeks pass. Life starts creeping up on you, but you brush it off, quick to fix any issue.  You don't have time for this, you're too busy feeling great.  Little grains of sands get caught in the cogwheels but the machine still turns, so why worry?  Maybe you feel a bit tired but you can't give up this perfect schedule. You told everyone about it, what would they think if you suddenly stopped following it? You keep going.

Suddenly,  Life throw a boulder at your perfect machinery.  You come to a screeching halt.  Everything goes silent.  You look around and start wondering how long your hungry kids have been staring at you from the piles of dirty clothes.

You might want to have someone look at this...

Dumbstruck. you're not sure what happened or how it happened.  You try to fix things, to get the machine running again.  It has to.  And it does, few days until it doesn't break, it explodes.  The gears are now disaligned beyond repair. Life has made a mess of things and  now that your perfect clockwork schedule is busted, you feel depressed and can't shake off the thought that you failed.  You find yourself not even the things you used to do.  You have no motivation, you're spent.  If the crash is intense enough to convince you that maybe following your dream was a silly thing to do, you might end up shelving the project never to touch it again.  In most cases however, you'll build a new miraculous schedule machine and start again in a few months.

Most of us need spontaneity in our lives and having a tight schedule does not allow for it.  Although it might work at first, it more often than not ends up in discouragement and the complete abandonment of the project. I'm not saying you shouldn't plan – on the contrary, I think it's very important to have a set amount of time dedicated to your craft, or else it becomes a hobby– but you should allow for the unpredictable. As silly as it sounds, it's easy to burden ourselves with more and more tasks when things are going well.  When on the rise, we feel like we could take on the world.  Thus, it's never a good idea to introduce an entirely new schedule to your life all at once.  Try to add the new things slowly, in small doses and see how it goes. That way, if things don't work out the way you planned, you won't feel like the whole thing was a complete failure.  You'll recover and try something different.

Look for signs to know if you might be doing too much.  It might not be obvious at first but after crashing a few times, a pattern will start to emerge.  For example, I can tell my schedule is getting too heavy when my apartment becomes messy.  When all the cups I possess are in the bedroom next to the computer and I have to ascend Mt. Dirtyclothes to take a shower, I know it's time for me to take a few thing off my weekly to do list.  Also, when things seem to go well and you're tempted to add one more things, take the time to ask yourself if you can really do this new thing.  Is it essential?  If yes, is there something you could swap it with?  Can you saccrifice another activity for this?

It sounds very obvious but I had to learn this the hard way.  I had to crash several times before I understood that I had to make choices.  Being naturally curious, that was very hard to come to terms with.  It's a slow process and I still struggle with this but I find I've been much more productive when my schedule is looser.

What about you? Are you an extreme planner? How can you tell when you're loosing control of your schedule?  Do you have any advice to share?

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Stepping off the Pedestal

Have you ever had a great idea?  An idea so cool it was going to revolutionize the world.  An idea so awesome that it made you feel that although other people had explored it, you were going to rock it so hard you would take it to the next level?  People would look in awe and venerate you for your genius.  You know the kind of idea I mean.  The type that makes you all motivated and inspired.

 I have.  I thought I was going to make ATUA the best blog about writing.  I worked and worked on plans and structure. It was going to be UNBELIEVABLE!!  (Cue the kittens, rainbows and unicorns.)

My face, exactly

Enter this.

For those of you who don't feel like clicking, the gist of this blog post by Kristen Lamb is that writers shouldn't have blogs about writing.  Wait a minute, you'll say, isn't her blog about writing?  Yes. It is about writing, but she has something I don't: experience.  Kristen is a published author and has an established platform: I don't. Setting aside the fact that I'm not a pro like her, her post points out something very important: writers who blog for writers condemn themselves to a very limited readership. 

So after I had gone through the five stages of grief, I decided I still wanted to keep ATUA alive. What was I going to write about?  I thought and thought and couldn't find anything.  I then talked to Mr. ATUA for an hour on the phone, enumerating all the things I enjoyed in life and that I could write about. We both agreed that here were enough travel and cooking blogs out there.  Then what?

That's when I came to the realization that, despite what I had believed until now, I am quite a "normal" person. Although some of my interests and tastes are not mainstream, I'm not that far from the norm that I may be called a hipster.  I'm just one slightly geeky girl who likes to write and who's not allowed to write about it. In the end, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find anything to write about.  What is wrong with me?

I'm terminally uninspired. 

There.  I've said it.  It's out in the world.  Now I could just give up and abandon ATUA but I don't want to do that.  I want to fight it!  That's right.   I'm going a quest for inspiration. I will go out into the world and I won't stop searching until I've found inspiration.

So stay tuned.  In the next few weeks you'll see changes to ATUA (layout, names and titles) but you'll also get to enjoy my adventures.

Rocking the knight uniform.  The horse costs a fortune...

Have you ever had an idea that you had to give up because it wasn't going to work?  How did you overcome the setback?  Did you end up coming up with comething even better?  Let me know!

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Love in the Time of Digitalia

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It's Friday night and I've had a couple of beers.  My friends have went on to party somewhere else so I'm meandering alone on Ste-Catherine, Montreal's downtown shopping street.  I'm not sure how but I end up at Chapters, the biggest English bookstore in town, but  before long, I'm waiting in line at the cash with 4 books in my arms.  Alcohol and literature are a dangerous mix.

Worst thing is, this is a common occurrence.  Not the drinking, silly, the buying of books!  I'm bored?  Let's buy a book!  I' happy, sad, angry?  Have you thought about buying more books?  Rings a bell?

If you haven't guessed yet, what I'm trying to say is that I love books.  Yes, yes, many of us do, I know,  but when I say I love books I mean more than just "I love reading";  I mean I love books as objects.  The purchase of a new book is a sensory experience.  I caress the spine and weigh the volume. Will I be able to hold it open with one hand only?  I breathe in the scent of ink and paper like a wine connoisseur. 

Ah yes, Penguin, I'd say 2005, excellent year.

My love of books is so strong that although I have a library card, I seldom use it.  I'm a greedy lover.  I want books to be mine.  I want to write in them, get them dirty and dog-ear pages.  I want to be able to pick them up when I feel like it and abandon them for as long as I want. You could say I want nothing less than an abusive relationship. Like little trophies of my well read-mind, I want to line them on the shelves of my cheap Swedish furniture — I may be poor but my intellect is far from it, admire the extent of my culture!  Have I read all those ? Well, of course. Like the stuffed heads of hunters' kills, my books are on display to impress. 

Ok, we get it, I can hear you say.  What about it?

The thing is that in the midst of the digital revolution, this passion seems a little backward. Many of my fellow writers now choose to publish exclusively online; getting involved in the whole distribution process is daunting, not to mention expensive.  Vanity presses are also costly.  So ebooks it is!  The digital format not only offers the writers more independence and flexibility, but it also allows reader to have an easier and quicker access to thousands of books that would never have reached them the traditional way.  It's a win-win, situation, you might say.

Where is the problem then?  Just buy and ereader, you tell me.

Well the problem is that I don't enjoy reading electronic books.  It has nothing to do with the content; it's about the format. I'm aware that trees die for my literary pleasure, yet the thought of reading off something made of the byproduct of fossilized dinosaurs depresses me.  Ebooks are, to me, the equivalent of complete meals in pill form; the content is filling but an important part of the experience is lost.  As a consequence, I find it harder to encourage my writer friends and I lose access to a growing chunk of the emerging literature which will most likely shape the future of the publishing industry.

But there is more... (dun, dun, duuuun!)

As a writer I will eventually face that choice from the other side.  Will I go the traditional way, hoping for an editor to discover me in his slush pile?  Or will I go the e-way? 

In both cases, it's clear that I will have to make a compromise.  To be quite honest, I have already started to read off my tablet.  Just a little bit! This love of books will never change but it's a question of embracing the digital revolution or missing the train.

What about you?  I'd love to hear hear from authors who published the traditional way, the e-way or both.  Did you have to face the same dilemma?  Readers, have you made the switch to ebooks already?  Or are you, like me, stuck in the printed words world?  What kind of compromise have you reached?

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