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Lorien blogs at Wayfaring Stranger and she is a kindred spirit full of fierce courage, adventure and love for life. It’s been an honor to get to know her through blogging, guest posting about Tough Girls, and hope to meet her one day! She’s a fellow Filipina and I hope you enjoy her story:
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Childish Enthusiasm
The walks are longer now, the mountains are higher, the trees are taller and the guns go from shooting water to shooting real, live bullets. But nothing ever changes. Except now, I’m all grown up. It’s less make believe, and more reality.
“We grow neither better nor worse as we get old, but more like ourselves” – May Lamberton
When I was young, I used to hike my journal out into the open fields and I’d climb small boulders and pretend that they were mountains. I explored castles on the scenic Lake Geneva, I learned languages and wrote letter after flourished letter to distant friends and kept notebook after notebook of journals stacked up on the highest shelf of my highest bookshelf. I imagined my life being my dreams turned into realities. I imagined I would walk through the world, one lonely highway at a time, then I would
Now, my journals are digital. A notebook filled with leafs of paper are now replaced by a Macbook. I went from imagining that I hiked a hundred miles to actually hiking that distance. I still look over an expansive landscape, and let the sheer glory of the horizon take my breath away. The higher you are, the thinner the air, the harder it is to continue but the greater the reward is for someone who can open their eyes and enjoy the magnitude of the world around them.
“A grown up is a child with layers on it” – Woody Harrelson
I have been married. I have been divorced. I hold an Associate Degree, a Bachelors Degree, and a Master’s is in the works. I own a car. I have owned a house. I have credit cards, bills and a thousand other “grown up” things. I’m up to my eyeballs in student loans. This is adulthood, I suppose, this grander, more modern version of my childhood play days.
“Put yourself into life and never lose your openness, your childish enthusiasm… and things will come your way.” – Frederico Fellini
As a child, we simply feel. We don’t sensor, we don’t intellectualize. We take everything in like a sponge. We are filled with this childish enthusiasm for everything that we experience – everything is new, everything is for the first time – we become tainted and jaded unless we make an effort to always keep our eyes open to the wonders around us.
Keep your eyes open. Keep your head in the clouds, and let your childish dreams come true! Let it fall into your lap, and you will always be satisfied with the hand you are dealt.
This post is part of a series on personal development, career and identity. It’s not about who you want to be when you grow up, but being who you ARE. The key is to find out your true calling and passions and then figuring out how to live it. We all have stories to share, and I want to hear yours. If you’d like to guest blog for the Panda, please submit to floreta@solitarypanda.com.
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What first drew me to Kristan was a picture of her and her dog! She had a Jack Russell terrier mutt and being that I used to own a Jack Russell, I have a big soft spot for them. She’s captivated me with her writing, and I’ve cheered her on when she entered a writing contest. I was very honored to guest blog for her one day (in which I first publicly announced my big Asia plans!) and so I couldn’t help but to return the favor. I know she has a big passion for writing, the kind of passion that drives you. And so, I wanted to hear her story:
The wordy nerdy halfie chameleon
by
Kristan Hoffman
First, I’d like to thank Floreta for inviting me to guest blog for her. I’ve been a fan ever since I saw her old panda logo. Not only is that little guy adorable, but he’s also indicative of how creative, independent, and fearless Floreta is. Seriously? This girl rocks! So it’s an honor to be among the bloggers that she trusts to fill her void.
Second, I didn’t really have a second.
And third, oh yeah, I guess I’ll talk about identity. Since that’s the theme and all.
The chameleon
As a young child, I had a handful of close family friends, none of whom knew each other, all of whom knew a certain version of me. Then there were my school friends. Then there were my Chinese school friends. Because I wanted to be liked by them all, I learned to act a certain way for each of them, and I started to think of myself as a chameleon, constantly changing colors.
The halfie
Speaking of Chinese school… I’m half Chinese! And do you know what’s really weird? Being half of something. Because then the other half is something else. Something different. Sometimes even something incompatible. Fortunately for me, my Asian and Caucasian halves seem to get along okay, but as a whole, I still have issues with my ethnic identity.
See, whenever I went visited my mom’s side of the family in Taiwan, I couldn’t speak to them because I didn’t really know Mandarin. That made me feel inadequate. Not Chinese enough.
But then, when I was with my dad’s side of the family, and I wanted noodles and cucumber cooked in oyster sauce, or some other weird Asian thing, I felt out of place. Not American enough.
I couldn’t win.
The word nerd
At age 4, I wanted to be a ballerina. At age 6, a cowgirl. At age 7, a veterinarian with a dude ranch. Don’t ask.
Then at age 9, I had to write an essay about the most beautiful place I’d ever been. I busted my butt on that essay, and I got an A+. Ever since then, I’ve wanted to be a writer.
The result
I often worried about these 3 aspects of my identity. People always talked about “staying true to yourself,” but I was constantly changing to please those around me. Wasn’t that bad? And I was the only brown-headed kid in Chinese school, where I took a special class with kids half my age. Wasn’t that weird? And writers, well, they don’t make any money. They live in cardboard boxes and mooch off their friends. Isn’t that pathetic?
I told myself that as I got older I would outgrow these parts of myself. Eventually I would learn that I didn’t have to be a chameleon. Eventually I would perfect the art of being Asian as well as the art of being American, and those would just become two more colors that my skin could switch to. Eventually I would stop wanting to be a writer and do something that you could actually make a career out of. Like programming. I liked programming a lot.
But that’s not what happened. Instead, as I got older, I outgrew my worries, and I grew into my own skin. I realized that a chameleon can change the color of his skin, but he cannot change his spiny lizard body or his big googly eyes. I realized that being half of two things meant I got the best of both worlds. I learned that writing was really the only I loved enough to do for the rest of my life.
So here I am today, a wordy nerdy halfie chameleon. It’s a hard thing to be, but it’s me. And I love it.
What I want to know is, who are you? When did you realize it? And more importantly, when did you embrace it?
This post is part of a series on personal development, career and identity. It’s not about who you want to be when you grow up, but being who you ARE. The key is to find out your true calling and passions and then figuring out how to live it. We all have stories to share, and I want to hear yours. If you’d like to guest blog for the Panda, please submit to floreta@solitarypanda.com.
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Jeremy is a talented illustrator and artist at jeremytheartist.com. As “creative types”, we hit it off pretty fast on 20sb. His creative process involves hand inking cartoons, scanning them on the computer and then coloring through photoshop. It’s a bit different than the digitized wacom tablet process and I appreciate his merging of traditional with digital techniques. As someone who finds it hard to channel my passions, I have much respect for people who have such obvious focused passion… Enjoy!
The Walk So Far
So my journey has been somewhat of a bumpy ride, but who hasn’t had their share of bumps eh? I definitely think I still have awhile to go before I am bountiful in material wealth, but I like to play with the notion that I’ve learned a thing or two along the way so far..
I included a drawing for this post that might carry my story along a bit better than I can. Each “panel” is marked with a number so it goes as such:
I was a fetus. And as you can see, I was wearing my first pair of glasses.
As a small boy, I drew a lot, ranging from dinosaurs to monsters to family members to family members on dinosaurs eating monsters. You think I’m kidding.
“The Band Years”. ‘bout 6 years there where the only “real” drawings anyone saw were my banners I made for the different instrumental sections to put in the band hall. That, and a couple t-shirt designs I made my senior year of high school.
Me at the present time. “The Man With The Talking Head”, “Jeremy The Artist”, “Jerms”.. “Sexy Pants”…though I don’t really prefer to be called the latter.
I like to think myself an artist most days. I take considerate joy, especially in the art of cartooning, a career I am grateful to have started a few years back…
My father was the cartoonist for his collegiate newspaper and it is something I’ve always taken great pride in…telling all the other kids that my dad could draw was something I cherished…one of the great things growing up was looking at all his doodles in this scrapbook that he kept, of all his cartoons he did for the paper…
That went to the top of the list in my head as far as what to do when I enter college. Sure enough, one of the first weeks of my freshman year, I found the collegiate paper and asked to be the cartoonist…it was one of those “heart thumper moments” ya know? “Hi, I am interested in drawing cartoons for the paper?” *tha thump tha thump tha thump*……. “sure.” …… “ok”…leaving the office, I thought to myself…how the hell…do I draw an editorial cartoon.
Little did I know what that would blossom into…a 4.5 year career as the Editorial Cartoonist…in which time I am proud to say I learned a small portion of what the hell I was supposed to be doing, even receiving 1st Place Editorial Cartoonist at a newspaper competition event I went to my last year..the whole Editorial Cartoonist experience is something that I will always treasure, for both the lessons I learned and the people I shared it with.
In that time, I can definitely say I grew and understand more so the dynamics of cartooning. I began to study the Sunday newspapers and any other comic/cartoon strips I could get my hands on…studying their specific compositions, styles, transitions, etc..
Cartooning, before college, was something I had enjoyed but not necessarily considered as a serious career. Drawing those editorial cartoons every week, and then eventually launching my own comic strip for the paper, I began to understand more about what making a cartoon is all about.
I compare cartooning to doing comedic stand up…it’s the greatest thing for someone to walk up to you and tell you how funny your cartoon was in last week’s issue. ..knowing that you made a person laugh, chuckle, smile or even a small smirk just makes you feel great inside…and you work your hardest to make each and every cartoon you do that much funnier and enjoyable for your readers.
I’m currently applying for my masters in Graphic Design, but cartooning is something I carry along with me next to my heart…I know it will be something I will do until the day I leave this earth and I am content with that knowledge, regardless of any other variables that will be affecting my life.
Cartooning is my passion, makes the walk so far a lil’ bit easier to tread.
This post is part of a series on personal development, career and identity. It’s not about who you want to be when you grow up, but being who you ARE. The key is to find out your true calling and passions and then figuring out how to live it. We all have stories to share, and I want to hear yours. If you’d like to guest blog for the Panda, please submit to floreta@solitarypanda.com.
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Andrew and I go way back when I posted on his internet forum that he has managed and built from scratch for years. After seeing my interest and passion for blogging, he got inspired to start his own at Don’t Feed the Animals; a witty title stemming from a reference to one of Chuck Pahliunuk’s novels, Choke. He writes smart, thought-provoking and well written essays about life and society from a convincingly Atheist perspective.
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I’m 27 and I only recently figured out what I want to do with my life. This is how I came to that decision:
When I was in my late teens, I thought that the entire world could be explained by a mathematical equation. Of course, I never found that equation, but I was sure that it existed. Maybe I should blame the movie Pi for that, but I had really always been a logic-over-passion type of person. Personal happiness, my conjecture began, is as simple as plugging in the variables. Now, while I am no longer as naive, I do feel like I was on to something. Recently, for my 27th birthday, a friend handed me a book called The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Written by a former trader and lifelong philosopher, this book appeared on the surface to be about economics and mathematics. However, beneath all the talk about stock market crashes and the Mandelbrot set, there was a real sense of practical clarity. The volatility of the various markets, one realizes, is no different than the everyday lives each of us choose to lead. There are markets for any personality; low risk, high risk, bland and exotic. Why, then, can we not take the approach we make toward money and apply it to real life?
If that seems a bit dispassionate to you, let me make it a little more vivid. I don’t know what you’re doing with your life right now, but whatever it is, I’m sure you can classify it under one of two categories. The first category, which Taleb refers to as Mediocristan, is where every day is generally the same; you can expect some variation, but even on the best or worst days, the overall experience doesn’t modify the landscape of your life. Consider waitressing: even your best day can occur within predictable means. A $500 tip would be outstanding, but it wouldn’t change your life. The second category, called Extremistan, offers a much different range of possibilities. In this environment, the majority of your days may seem just as monotonous as Mediocristan, but the potential for life-altering circumstances always looms. If you’re a writer, for instance, you can spend a lifetime in obscurity, earning meager recognition for your labor. Then, suddenly, you’re a hit. The ceiling on your potential success at this point is non-existent. Furthermore, the success you do achieve will undoubtedly alter your immediate life and your future, in addition to justifying all the years of toil you spent to get to that point. It all depends on what you expose yourself to.
Let’s go back to cold, unfeeling math for a moment now. At the heart of our two realms of existence, we have two types of probability; negative and positive. Negative probability works like this: if you’re a restaurant owner, the best you can realistically hope for is that your restaurant achieves success enough for you to either live off the returns or open another one. However, the worst that can happen is that you lose your entire investment (maybe more) when nobody shows up to eat your food. The general analysis? There is a lot invested for a mediocre, measured gain at best. Many of us choose this route because we are comfortable with the idea that the modesty creates a greater chance for success. Meanwhile, we have positive probably to consider as well. It works in the opposite manner of negative probability; small investments have a low chance of making it big, but when they do, the positives can easily outweigh a lifetime of negatives. The performer Eddie Cantor once said, “It takes 20 years of hard work to become an overnight success.” The first step in exposing yourself to the right kind of environment is to identify the type of probability at play within it.
Scalability is another key component to potential success. Consider that it would take considerably more work to make a million dollars as a waitress than as a writer. Though on your worst day as a writer, you will make less money than a waitress on her worst day, all it takes is one good day to change it all around. As a restaurateur, you’re required to keep opening more and more restaurants if you want to increase your profits; a single location can only earn you so much. However, as a venture capitalist, one can make an unlimited amount of investments, while only needing one hit to consider the path a success. It maximizes serendipity. Some people dream of wild success while working at a desk job or providing a personal service. I’m not here to say that they’re caught in a dream. Instead, I want to make a point out of their potential; no matter what heights they reach, they are always limited by the number of hours in a day and breath in their lungs. If we want to reach the stars, we know we can’t simply walk there, we have to be a bit more clever than that.
The most important factor in choosing what to expose yourself to: What will make you happy? Despite all I’ve said about success, I undoubtedly endorse the world of Mediocristan if you just want to be happy. What we’re talking about is a lifetime of small, incremental victories versus a lifetime of letdown after letdown, all in the hopes of a single moment of vindication. Any psychologist will tell you that the healthier path is the one that rewards you constantly, though modestly. When you live in Extremistan, you’ve got more than just probability working against you. Let’s say you do succeed and your life changes, what then? Suddenly, your standard for success has risen and now even the tiny victories are unsatisfying. We all know how this feels; we get what we want and we still want more. Even a repeat is disappointing if it doesn’t top what you achieved before. The path through Extremistan is not for the pleasure seeker, but for the dreamer.
How do we apply these ideas to our lives? I’ve done so by mixing both worlds together. I consider myself a writer and my goal is to be paid to write my own topics (enough to live comfortably), but I know that the chances of this are low – very low. It is a life of constant output with little to no feedback and, so far, superficial success (I’ve gotten a few articles on the front page of Digg and Reddit, I’ve even been on the radio to talk about one, but I have not earned a penny from any of it, nor has my blog maintained the initial burst of traffic provided by these successes). I retain my motivation by seeking validation in other areas. I have a day job that provides me with a means to earn and save money consistently. I also have taken up rock climbing, an activity in which I see improvements in both my physique and my technique that please me every day. While this may not sound like such a radical life, that is part of my point. You don’t need to martyr yourself for your lofty dreams, and you don’t have to settle for a boring existence.
Find the balance that works for you. Some people need to devote their life to a single goal, others juggle many balls at once. Then there are those of us who are happy to live in a hut by the beach, catching our own food in the ocean and ending every day with a sunset over the water. What worked for me was understanding the potential of the activities I got involved in and reconciling that with the dreams that drive me. Now that I’ve decided what I want to do, the next step is actually doing it. I’ll let you know how that turns out.
This post is part of a series on personal development, career and identity. It’s not about who you want to be when you grow up, but being who you ARE. The key is to find out your true calling and passions and then figuring out how to live it. We all have stories to share, and I want to hear yours. If you’d like to guest blog for the Panda, please submit to floreta@solitarypanda.com.
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Maria has many hobbies and interests and especially is into Tae Kwon Do. We were guest bloggers in a “Tough Girl” series about martial arts together for one of our blog friends. And she has something I aspire to have: a black belt! Read on for Maria’s take on career and identity. I couldn’t relate more!.
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I couldn’t agree more with Floreta that growing up and finding a job is just being who we are, not what we want to be.
When I was a kid I used to play with my best friend Danny on his swing set. We’d sit side by side on the swings and while we pumped our legs to get our momentum going, we would laugh and scream out all the things we would be when we grew up.
“Cop”
“Veterinarian”
“Teacher”
“Writer”
“Movie Star”
“Singer”
“Paramedic” (though I think we called it ambulance person)
The truth is I really did want to be all those things. I thought I’d love working and I could do multiple jobs in a day. It was idealistic, but looking back I realize that I am meant to be a jack of all trades, master of none.
My attention span is limited. I want my job to be exciting and be constantly learning. It’s hard to find a job that lets me do this. I think I’ll spend most of my life discovering new things. If this means never getting to be CEO or Director, I’m ok with that.
I’m not ambitious in the sense I need to make 6 figures a year. Of course it would be nice, but it’s not a necessity. I truly believe in working to live, not living to work.
I don’t have just one passion. I have a million passions that surface at one time or another. Sometimes it’s multiple things at once, other times it’s one thing until it fades into another.
I’ll never be a professional anything. I’ll be an amateur until that job bores me and I will move onto the next thing. I’m still calling out things I can still possibly be.
And I take no shame in that.
This post is part of a series on personal development, career and identity. It’s not about who you want to be when you grow up, but being who you ARE. The key is to find out your true calling and passions and then figuring out how to live it. We all have stories to share, and I want to hear yours. If you’d like to guest blog for the Panda, please submit to floreta@solitarypanda.com.
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Emily has a really inspiring story and I’m glad that she can share it here with you all. She is one of those people you can genuinely say turned her life around and is living proof that you can take control of your life and change it. She has a loyal following and amazing community on her blog, emily-jane.net.
First of all, before I begin, I’d love to say how happy I am to be guest posting for the lovely Floreta. We’ve only been blog-friends for a little while, but she’s got such big dreams, and such determination, and I’m incredibly excited to hear all about the amazing adventures she’ll have on her travels throughout the year!
When I read the topic of this little series, I was intrigued. Growing up: “it’s not about who you want to be when you grow up, but being who you ARE.” This immediately hit home because throughout 2009, for the first time in all my 24 years I began to question my sense of identity. Who I was didn’t line up with the person I wanted to be. There was a huge discrepancy – I’d, up until then, lived my life according to what I’d been told while growing up. I was told I had to be a professional teacher, or doctor, or something that involved at least five years of schooling and made a minimum of $50k a year. I remember my parents asking me at age 16 what I wanted to be, and I answered: “in advertising or design.” I had a huge passion for creativity, loved to write, draw and make things, and the idea seemed so exciting to me. But it was shot down, and I felt like if I attempted anything other than my parents’ ideas of what I should be doing, it wasn’t going to be good enough.
So I put my love of reading and writing into English literary studies instead, with the hopes of becoming a teacher, only to drop out in my second year due to lack of funds, relationship drama in my first year of moving out, and my growing fear of being in front of people. I was petrified every time I had to get up in front of my classes and do a presentation, a fear that was only exacerbated by my thoughts of becoming a teacher. I took some “time off” to really figure out what it was I wanted to do – time off which ended up being slightly more permanent, during which time I found employment at a print and design studio, and developed my skills in graphics, and – you got it – advertising. It was a dream – I got to do something new every day, learn new skills without paying thousands of dollars, and really satisfy my craving for creativity. It was a great job, and ultimately led me to where I am now – in charge of advertising, design and marketing for an amazing workplace.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. My early twenties were rife with a series of very unfortunate events. My parents split up, I entered into a couple of long-term, serious relationships only to be dumped by one from halfway around the world, and taken for a fool by another who promised me the world initially, only to progress into pathological lies, drug use, and abuse. By the end of it, I was a wreck – I’d been so naïve and insecure in myself that I’d hung on to the people I thought were the only ones that thought I was worth anything, and when it all went wrong, I was a mess. My self-confidence had been destroyed, and I’d grown to believe I was no good for anybody, doomed to relationship failure, and not worth anything to the world. My social anxiety grew along with my self-doubts, and I ended up living a shell of an existence, too afraid to venture out into the world and plagued by detrimental thoughts.
Then came along my now-fiancé, who I must’ve put through hell in the first few months of our dating; I didn’t believe anyone could actually think I was beautiful, talented, or worth anything – I certainly didn’t believe it myself, and for the longest time I was the product of my past. I believed everything everyone had ever told me about what I “should” be, and what I “couldn’t” do. After a while, it became too much – and I declared, in a fit of tears, that I was done with it. I wanted to take everything I didn’t like about myself or the way I thought, or lived my life – and change it.
I wanted to be happy, and believe I deserved to be so. I wanted to get past my fear of being in front of people for fear of judgment, and become comfortable in the spotlight – maybe I could end up teaching after all, and make some sort of positive contribution to the world. I wanted to feel comfortable in my own skin, and not see a million things I wish were different every time I looked in the mirror. I wanted to be successful on my own terms – learn what I wanted to learn, and find the jobs I wanted to do. They may not be the greatest paying jobs in the world, but I wanted to do what made me happy.
So I set about doing it immediately. Every time I was asked out with friends, I’d go despite my fears of what others might think. In meetings, I voluntarily contributed opinions, without worrying they might sound stupid. I asked my boss if I could start teaching – the thought terrified me, but my request was granted, and with practice, being in front of people is becoming easier. And instead of feeling nobody cares, as a result of the last X amount of years’ worth of negative reinforcement, I started putting time and effort into reforming friendships – and I now feel valued, and respected.
It’s so easy in a world that’s so quick to judge, to succumb to it and believe everything negative we’re ever told. But in my experience, you don’t have to become a product of your past. If your heart leads you in another direction, or if you want to be a stronger, better person – the power lies within you to go ahead and defy everything. Finding my identity took a lot of soul-searching and a lot of pushing myself out of my comfort zone, but with the support of my friends, my boy, and especially bloggers – I think I’m closer than I ever have been to being exactly where I want to be. Your past doesn’t hold any power over your future if you decide not to let it.
Dream big – and then do everything you can to get there. It’ll be the best decision you may ever make.
Find me over at http://emily-jane.net or @fuchsiag – I’d love to hear your stories!
This post is part of a series on personal development, career and identity. It’s not about who you want to be when you grow up, but being who you ARE. The key is to find out your true calling and passions and then figuring out how to live it. We all have stories to share, and I want to hear yours. If you’d like to guest blog for the Panda, please submit to floreta@solitarypanda.com.
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Christina is an entrepreneur and blogs at thesavvygrad.com. When she answered my call to response I was honored to have her and felt her website content fit very well with the theme of this series. If you’re interested in any helpful tips or tricks and like what you read here, read her at The Savvy Grad!
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As a child I was business minded, always seeking out the next opportunity to make some money and start something on my own. Instead of having a lemonade stand like the other kids on the block I was mixing it up with root beer float stands. You could find me on weekends at the park down the street selling peanuts and soda to the fans of the baseball games, and if you lived in my neighborhood you probably had a subscription to the Corona Weekly, our weekly newspaper of events and stories. Today I am a serial entrepreneur with two businesses under my belt, and more to come in the future. From my experience I agree that it is not who you want to be when you grow up but more about being who you are.
Many of you may struggle to accept this theory as relates back to the philosophical question of fate vs determinism. On one hand it is comforting to know that we will be who we are ment to be no matter what we do, but on the other hand it is scary to know that we are out of control when it comes to deciding who we are. But before you let your fear take over and you start to panic, let me suggest that both fate and self determinism exist simultaneously. Fate takes you where you are supposed to be, the fork in the road persay, and then you must take it from there and determine which path you are going to take. Now that you are beginning to get on board with this theory it is time to learn how to harness its power and use it to your advantage.
Step 1: Discovering who you are
This is the hardest and most challenging part of the entire process as it asks you to answer the question some people spend their whole lives trying to answer. This step cannot be accomplished in one action but it can be started with a simple personality test. Strengtshfinder 2.0 is a unique personality test that yields your top 5 inherent strengths. It is based on the theory that you are born with a specific set of strengths that do not evolve that much as you grow older. It helps you discover your inherent strengths and teaches you how to leverage those strengths to be the most successful you.
Step 2: Identify your passions
By answering a few simple questions you will have a better idea of what you are truly passionate about.
- What puts a smile on your face?
- What do you find easy?
- What sparks your creativity?
- What would you do for free?
- What do you like to talk about?
- What makes you unafraid of failure?
- What would you regret not having tried?
Step 3: Put it to work
Now comes the part you need to spend some time thinking and reflecting on. How can you combine your strengths with your true passions to make your dream career? Here are a few more questions to help spark the ideas in your mind.
- How does your passion impact the lives of others?
- Is there a need that could be filled by your passion?
- How could your passion help to simplify a process?
- What organization’s or companies share your passion?
This post is part of a series on personal development, career and identity. It’s not about who you want to be when you grow up, but being who you ARE. The key is to find out your true calling and passions and then figuring out how to live it. We all have stories to share, and I want to hear yours. If you’d like to guest blog for the Panda, please submit to floreta@solitarypanda.com.
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Ashley blogs at Germato.com and she answered my call to response in a 20sb group about the quarter-life crisis. I love Ashley’s positive outlook on life (live as if you were dying; AKA: live life to the fullest!) and I’m glad I could find her and her blog and look forward to getting to know her through the blogging community!
10 Year Olds Know A Lot More Than I’d Like to Think
When I was younger, I knew two things. I was going to be a veterinarian when I grew up and my best friend at the time was going to be my best friend forever. Little did I know, forever meant until she moved to Alaska. And watching animals die? Not something I handled with a lot of class. As I grew older, it was less about what I thought I knew and more about what I was being told to know.
Careers like lawyers and doctors were pushed while I doodled and wrote poetry. Math was encouraged and art was ignored. High school became the breeding ground for what my parents thought I was supposed to become. Not what I wanted to become. I didn’t know what that was at that point, but I did know it wasn’t what they wanted. I was just following their footsteps and I saw how unhappy they were at times. So I jumped ship.
After high school I didn’t go to college right away. I spent time working and traveling a bit instead. I finally decided to go back, over a year after, only to last two semesters at a technical school. It was too time consuming while I was working a full-time job. That full-time job was less-than-satisfactory, but it paid the bills. It had become my life. School was not an option. Becoming more than a replaceable office worker was not an option. Until I realized I wasn’t happy.
Maybe I had covered it up. Maybe I wanted so desperately to be happy that I ignored when I wasn’t. Or maybe I just wasn’t ready to handle the truth. Whatever the case, I went back to the years I was convinced I was just too naïve. I went back to the things I’d given up. I went back to finding out who I was, not who everyone else wanted me to be.
So I began writing again. Drawing again. Doing all of the things that allowed me to express myself again. I got lost in books and fell asleep with a pen in hand more often than not. I still had a job that was ill-fitting. And there was still little time for college. But life had improved tremendously. My free time was spent doing the things that made me who I was. I was no longer pretending to be something, or someone, I was not.
That eventually led to my decision to reenroll in college. I opted for an online school for a degree in Environmental Management. I wanted to change the world. I remember telling everyone what I picked and the dumbfounded stares I received in response. I felt like I had to explain my decision, but never did. It was justified in my heart and I finally realized that was all that mattered.
Which brings me to today. I blog to feed my writing interest and doodle during meetings at a different, but still less-than-satisfactory job. Still pursuing that degree – hoping that I’ll graduate with a BA, or even an MBA, and somehow, change the world in some tiny form. Fulfilling the shoes of a lawyer or a doctor has never been further out of my mind.
This post is part of a series on personal development, career and identity. It’s not about who you want to be when you grow up, but being who you ARE. The key is to find out your true calling and passions and then figuring out how to live it. We all have stories to share, and I want to hear yours. If you’d like to guest blog for the Panda, please submit to floreta@solitarypanda.com.
23:
Brittney, from the fabulous La Midge is a new reader and blog friend I found. I just loved her blog and cute design and her conversational writing style. Her entries are always fun and she just seems like a spunky, nerdy gal! Any fellow nerd/geek is pretty much guaranteed to be a friend of mine (and Seb, right Seb?)!
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“Find a job you like and you add five days to every week.” – H. Jackson Browne
That’s a wise quote, is it not? That those who enjoy what they do, feel themselves while they do it, are far more content than the rest of us who somehow grew to end up doing the last thing we envisioned ourselves becoming when we played dress up as children. Here’s the quote that better matches my 9-5 routine:
“The number one sign you have nothing to do at work: The 4th Division of Paperclips has overrun the Pushpin Infantry and General White-Out has called for a new skirmish.” – Fred Barling
When I read Floreta’s theory — that for the most part we grow into careers we were meant to have — I wasn’t sure I agreed. If that were true, I’d currently be a mermaid and not a Pricing Coordinator. Or a tiger trainer. Or magic! OH, she meant it for the kids who had realistic dreams. I see, I see. 
As I sat brainstorming all the reasons I didn’t agree, I realized I may be looking at it with far too literal an eye. While those of us who played “rich” as children may not have grown up heirs to the Johnson & Johnson fortune (too soon?), I think she might be right: That even though we may not necessarily see a direct lineage from our yesteryear dreams to our current occupations, we find a way to work ourselves into what we do.
When I was younger, I was bossy a leader. I founded endless “I Love” whatever clubs, planned Thank-God-It-Summer parties and spent a good deal more time than most children putting together processes and budgets for things. I’d like to say this was because I was so awesome, but it was mostly because I was a nerd and loved me a little calculator and notepad free time. So I guess you could say I was a really good coordinator. COORDINATOR. Remembering what I currently do for a living from Paragraph 4, are we seeing what I’m going for here? Anyone? The kid in the second row’s got it – four for you, Glen Coco!
So it dawned on me, while I may not have been gunning for Pricing Coordinator and more for Mer-person as a kid, I’ve brought ME into my role. I am constantly managing projects, putting together “next steps”, hosting meeting (upon meeting, upon meeting… shoot me), designing presentations, etcetera etcetera. I felt a little fancy spelling that out, forgive me.
I think we hold the ability to tweak our roles to bring more of what our innate skills are to the table; and when we end up completely where we shouldn’t be, I think we know it. My husband is a perfect example of that.
Growing up, Sean was a whiz at math. I call him my human calculator. Not like Rain Man, thanks, but a normal regular Texas Instrument type human calculator. He likes numbers, he likes calculations. He likes the mystery of finding the root of whatever. Very opposite me, as the only roots I tend to deal with are the ones on my head I’m a natural blonde. He also is a very chill guy, with a never-ending amount of patience to explain something and then re-explain something in the clearest way possible. Case and point? He married me, didn’t he?
Unsure what to do in college, he nabbed a Finance degree. Math doesn’t change, there was good money in Financial Analysis, and businesses needed him, yada mcyada. He worked his way into the field and planned to do the stereotypical climbing the ladder toward Sr. FA. He liked his job alright, but it was the coworkers I think who made it so awesome for him.
When we relocated to Texas, however, he began to feel itchy in his career choice. We were walking through Wal-Mart one afternoon (nothing but high end for us, thank you very much) discussing this, when Sean paused to overanalyze a nutrition label. The toddler in the shopping cart next to him stared intently. Sean waved. Said toddler squealed with delight. I grinned. Though he’s never put effort into it, kids flock to Sean. FLOCK to him. It’s actually something I am mildly jealous over.
His nieces and nephews hold a parade anytime Sean is in town, I swear it. The planet stops spinning juuust for his arrival. I wrote this off as, duh, they’re family. Yet we cannot go anywhere without every child, baby to 10 year old, making an attempt to communicate with him. Whether it’s a wiggly newborn who notices him from their carrier and stretches out in smiles, or the random neighbor kid who hangs out near the lawn a little longer just to think of something to ask him when he gets the mail. Maybe he looks like a fun cartoon to them, I have no idea. It’s like he’s the Pied Piper of younglings and I’ve wondered if he walks around with cheese hanging out of his back pockets.
Thinking of this, I blurted out, “You should’ve been a teacher. Kids just swarm to you.” Not expecting much reaction, I was met with, “You’re RIGHT.”
Fast forward to a year later, and Sean has completed his teaching credentials for middle school math. He feels a passion for what he’s going to do. A sense he won’t just have a job, but a career. A career that fits his inherent personality, the very niche that is my husband.
So though I started this with all the reasons the theory was wrong, the more I dove into it, I realized for the majority of us, it’s correct. It just depends on how you view it. Whether its people who follow the obvious path of things like enjoy and are good at (like Sean) or the rest of us who find a way to work ourselves into our positions (a la Me) – we all have the ability to, and commonly do, find a way to be who we are while we work.
So I’m a bit more optimistic now about my job now, a little more happy with what I spend 40+ hours a week doing. Perhaps this means General White-Out will finally call a cease-fire with the Legion of Stamps and my desk will live to see another day. We shall see.
This post is part of a series on personal development, career and identity. It’s not about who you want to be when you grow up, but being who you ARE. The key is to find out your true calling and passions and then figuring out how to live it. We all have stories to share, and I want to hear yours. If you’d like to guest blog for the Panda, please submit to floreta@solitarypanda.com.
22:
Deeptesh instantly dazzled me with his poetry blog. Reading them made me think he was much older than I, but as it turns out, he isn’t even 20 yet! Deeptesh has the unique perspective of being an English poet in Kolkata, India. Born and raised there, his command of the English language and literature is simply brilliant! He deserves all of the accolades and future accolades that he receives. Written in story form, here is Deeptesh’s romantic take on his identity:
Two Worlds in a Mirror
There was an extra-ordinary lull in Oxford Street as I walked forward with measured steps. The neon-lit shop windows and the traffic flickered past in a trance almost as if it were a dream sequence. Lila stood in the doorway softly reclining against the advertisement boards in the corner. Her short hair rustled against her blue dress and her face shaded from the gaslight was a perfect interplay of light and shadows. Our eyes met across the street and at once the peaceful composition of her facade changed into a smile. Her eyes were shinning as she held my hand….her touch was magic. She could see me shivering in the cold….”It always snows here in December” she said. Her sentence hung loosely in the silence like a quiet reflection. It had been a long time and through the derelict tunnel of memories the dusty door of which has been suddenly opened by her fragmented words, I found myself travelling back to those sultry evenings in Kolkata.
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The monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein had demanded a female for the gratification of his sexual desires. Victor, the scientist however aborted the female monster as he was scared of giving sexual freedom to a female in this male dominated society. The mad honking of cars outside forced me to put aside the book….the motorbus had been stuck in a traffic jam at Park Street for almost over half an hour. “Damn it!” I exclaimed, “I’ll be late for classes again!” Some political party which apparently didn’t have anything better to do early in the morning was in a procession demonstrating against hiked up prices of goods. The peddlers ferried their wares up to the windows of stagnant vehicles and were making easy money. A huge Bollywood poster of actress Kareena Kapoor was on the hoardings ~there was a big hole in the place of her left eye. I remembered seeing such a poster right next to my school gate. I would scowl at the picture everyday when I walked in…..that beautiful archway with a statue of the Christ above…all that seemed a long time now.
In the summer of 2008 when I had just entered high school after my board exams, I was a shy, hesitant teenager and was known by very few of my juniors even after twelve years of school life. In my academic circle, I wasn’t doing too well in the science stream. The forces that govern this Newtonian universe or the titrate value of NaCl were not my cup of tea. Ever since I had an open heart surgery when I was two and a half years old, my parents had loved me more than a normal child. My performance was also enviable as I was often among the prize winners for general proficiency. But all that had changed as I found myself plummeting to the bottom in high school….I was somewhere near the bottom in my form and considering my decision of having not gone for the Arts Stream a serious mistake. Of course I was still very much the topper when it came to English and Lila was still somewhat ‘more than just a friend’ to me.
It was back in the seventh standard~ when I was in middle school~ as rumor spread that I love Lila. The situation, needless to describe, became too embarrassing for words as the entire class started talking about it. What made things worse was that the so-called rumor wasn’t a rumor after all ~ it was the truth. It was the ultimate truth in my life from which I kept running away as I knew Lila would never love me and we’re so much better off being at least ‘friends’. Even Lila asked me the truth a few times but I blankly denied it.
But we were still “friends” in high school even though I secretly wept everyday when she would not talk to me. Those were the days….I would wait for everyone to leave the class to go to the lab for experiments and wait to be one on one with Lila to speak a little~ after the scandal we seldom talked in public as we were scared of further ramifications~ and she would walk out with her friends leaving me alone. I would cry my heart out in class and then run to the wash-basin to throw up. “Life sucks and I’m going fucking crazy. It’s total shit”, I thought. Ours wasn’t a normal friendship. We would avoid each other for days and then talk a lot again. We would often exchange words ‘friends’ didn’t talk about. And recently my love poems had led her to nag me about the ‘girl’ I wrote about. “Who is the girl? Tell me”..this soon became her obsession.
One sultry afternoon when I was busy with my lab experiment, I received word that our school principal had sent for me. Terrified and not knowing what to expect, I walked into his office through the doors I had always dreaded as a child. In middle school, I often fantasized about that door and what lay beyond~ as if it were an entrance to some other hallucinatory world. It was the house of the jury that gave orders against high school miscreants. Walking in, I was relieved to find the bulky man in his cosy armchair beaming at me. On his table lay ‘The Teachers’ day lyrics’ I had written and he was all praise about it. The next day he took my notebook home and read all my recent poems. He was elated to read them but also added “You have some secret pain in your heart…psychic striptease for therapeutic purpose may be?” I only knew too well what that “secret pain” was but nevertheless I was happy to have entered the principal’s room and gotten his praise…it was to me like transcending the ultimate physical boundary within my narrow insular world of existence. The lyrics was composed by our school band and after the performance on Teachers’ Day, our principal congratulated me declaring me as a ‘poet’ in front of the entire school.
For the last couple of years of my school life, the spotlight never shifted for me as the school poet. That was a personal re-definition of myself and I was still beginning to tackle the escalating fame. For the next three inter-school fests that year I won prizes for creative writings competing against other schools in Kolkata and my script on a satirized version of modern eastern mythology won the Best Script Award in The Vibes organized by The Statesman (Indian paper). And my personal life was taking care of itself in its strange mysterious way. When Lila’s nagging got unbearable one day, I wrote down her name in a piece of paper saying “This is whom I love”. Strangely she seemed happy to read it but called me a ‘coward’ for having lied to her. A month later, I asked her at last, “Lila, do u consider me to be anything more than a friend?” It was anything but a proposal but her reply was simple. “I love you”. I froze in tears as she pleaded with me, “Oh Deeptesh, why didn’t you propose before? I always loved you since I first saw you in the fifth standard. Do you know how much I cried when u denied me? A girl will never tell…I waited for you to tell me all these years”. That was like a flash in a dream…those ephemeral moments of eternity we all hold onto as long as we live even when despair had sucked the heart dry.
In the last year of my school life I started my own poetry blog deepteshpoetry which has been a success and got a few of my poems published outside. Lila’s love was a huge turning point in my life and had re-shaped my identity. It was sad to leave school after fourteen years of school life and the expectations were high when we sat for our board exams. But my result was quite poor in science~ I had already decided to pursue a career in English literature~ but it was difficult to get admitted anywhere as all the colleges were demanding a colossal overall percentage. I knew Jadavpur University in Kolkata had the best English department in Asia but then again, I had to crack a difficult admission test to get in for a BA in English . There were 38 seats against 2500 candidates. Imagine my joy when I came 3rd in the test and got in!!
My cellphone beeped to interrupt my train of thoughts. I was dazed to find a text from our school interact club inviting me to be the judge of an extempore event in the inter-school fest. The bus meanwhile was taking the turn at Golpark beside RKM. What stretched in front of us was the long span of Dhakuria bridge. It was like the pathway to my career. Discussions on romantics like Wordsworth…..TS Eliot’s treatment of time in ‘The Wasteland’… guest lectures by Oxford professors… seminars on Renaissance…heated discussions on cold winter mornings……it was the world of words I had delved into. Our university had a great environment and I was not ‘studying’ anymore…I was living life, researching in the world of literature. “What do u wanna be when u grow up?” irks me at times. I’m an escapist….living in this tapestry of words, ideologies, and ‘isms’. I would smile, “ I want to do a Phd from Oxford”.
* * * *
Lila hugged me tightly…”It’s been a long time”..I felt her body softly against mine. The neon-lit boards screamed “Happy New Year 2019”. Cloistered in the walls of a kiss, I felt the those tiny snippets coming back to me in reverie~ the scandal in seventh standard, the day when our principal appreciated me, the day I proposed her….my getting into the University…idle evenings at the Victoria or a whispered confession at a coffee house…or are those reveries the real reality? How real is what we see….is there real meaning to be found somewhere out there in the frozen moment of a guitar string, a single poetic imagery, the orgasmic moment of sexual union or snow frozen on clock hands…..I didn’t know if the kiss was real or my snippets in this looking-glass world……but I knew this was my personal identity, this was my life, this was ME. Lila let go and softly said “No…not here my luv. Let’s go.” And hand in hand, (like in Milton’s “Paradise Lost”), we walked down Oxford Street.
(The girl’s name has been changed. The last part was futuristic but in reality she is now doing a BSc in Physics and I’m doing a BA in English. Thanks to Floreta for allowing me to guest blog for The Solitary Panda. I’ve always had a tremendous respect for her blog and writings and we remain great friends.)
Deeptesh Sen
BA English,
Under-graduate-I
Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India
deepteshpoetry.blogspot.com
This post is part of a series on personal development, career and identity. It’s not about who you want to be when you grow up, but being who you ARE. The key is to find out your true calling and passions and then figuring out how to live it. We all have stories to share, and I want to hear yours. If you’d like to guest blog for the Panda, please submit to floreta@solitarypanda.com.
