Well first let me say sorry that I've gone AWOL - its been a long, brutal winter on this end (as many of my dear friends are aware of since I have been bitching to you guys about my crappy mood for months....) and as a result I just haven't felt like doing much of anything, including posting to my blog. But I think things are finally turning around a bit here, so that said I wanted to begin posting a few things I've saved and just hadn't gotten around to sharing yet....
I've been in serious "what am I doing with my life" mode recently....in trying to figure out what to do with my career and my future in a more thoughtful way than my previous efforts (which have involved me throwing everything I possibly can at the wall in the hopes that something would stick...and nothing has and all I've ended up with is a friggin mess) I've been reading everything I can get my hands on that could possibly help, and I did come across something that resonated in a "big picture" kind of way. I actually really liked this - the last line in particular which is simple and totally on-point for 30-somethings like me stumbling through our days and trying to figure it all out: Never Settle and there is no reason to rush.
I feel confident that I have the "never settle" part down....its the "rushing" part that I need some serious work on.....
Anyway as this touches on marriage ("I'm a big believer that getting married is about finding yourself first"), career, and pretty much everything I've been talking to my friends about these days, and it sums up a lot of my own thoughts in a more articulate way than I seem to be able to do these days, so I figured I'd share - this is from Mark Cuban (Dallas Mavericks owner, bazillionare, and all-around media guru):
http://www.blogmaverick.com/
What Are You Destined to Be ?
Mar 9th 2008 1:02PM
Every day I get at least one email from someone proclaiming that they are "destined to be" XXXXX. You can fill in the blank with any number of dreams the person has for themself, be it rich, famous, the best this or that. Of course they aren't emailing me just to tell me, they email me to ask for money to enable them to be whatever it is they dream of being. For me, its a good problem to have. But it leads to questions. Do we know what we are destined to be, or do we find it through experiences ? Are each of us really good at something, and its just a matter of finding it ? Do we all have something that we would love to do every day and do we inherently know it, or do we have to find it ? Will what you love to do always be what you are great at ?
Personally, I always have enjoyed business, but I never knew that I had an aptitude for technology until I got a job at Mellon Bank that lasted all of 8 months. But during the many hours of boredom, I found myself sitting in front of a mainframe teaching myself a scripting language called Ramis and loving every minute of it. Which lead to me buying a TI/99A I think it was, for 99 dollars, attaching a tape recorder as a drive (how is that for dating myself) and teaching myself basic. Which led to... You get the idea. I loved every minute of it. Maybe I wasnt the best programmer in the world, but in combination with business and sales skills, I found something that was a blast to me that I could and did do 24 hours at a time and not miss a beat.
Personally, I don't think people "know" what they are destined to be until they try it for the first couple times. Going to college should be about experiencing as much academically as you possibly can, but more importantly, it should be about learning how to learn and recognizing that learning is a lifelong endeavor. School isn't the end of the learning process, its purely a training ground and beginning. IMHO, once you have learned how to learn, then you can try as many different things as you can, recognizing that you don't have to find your destiny at any given age, you just have to be prepared to run with it when you experience it.
Of course there is always a caveat to destiny, and thats obligation. The greatest obstacle to destiny is debt, both personal and financial. The more people you are obligated to, the harder it is to focus on yourself and figure things out. I'm a big believer that getting married is about finding yourself first, which makes it a lot easier to find the right person. If you can't stand on your own, it's impossible to successfully be part of a couple.
I'm also a big believer that financial debt is the ultimate dream killer. Your first house, car, whatever stuff you might want to buy are going to be the primary reasons you stop looking for what makes you the happiest.
How crazy is it to settle for a house, car or ?? over what it is you would like to do on an hourly or daily basis ?
Never Settle and there is no reason to rush. If you aren't happy with where you are at, simplify your life and go out and try as many things as it takes to find what you may be destined to be. If there is such a thing.
