The lull in life

Hello! It has been exactly one month since I last blogged. To be honest, I’m not sure who really cares, except my friends KY and Fireangel who frequently make known of their dissatisfaction at my lack of updates.

It is sweet; after all it’s nice to be reminded that someone out there still thinks of you. Except now when I feel lazy to blog (which is often), their faces creep into my mind! Not sure if it’s a good or bad thing for they could appear at the most awkward moments…!

What to write, what to write.. Hmm. Okay, let me tell you a story.

Because you need a photo of a goat that has no context to this post.

For most of us, there comes a time in life when your life mirrors a Kris Allen song, Wastin’ Time.

Well I’ve been writin’ all these verbs down and I don’t know why
‘Cause I got no action I got no action I got no action in my life
…
Well everybody’s passin’ you on this road you’re on
You gotta pack your things and get ready to go

Sure, the lyrics are far from award-winning. The other song option would be U2’s Stuck In A Moment, but the song is about suicide and I’m not so inclined.

Self-help gurus and Buzzfeed drum into you that you need to feed your soul. To do that, you just have to follow your dreams and passion in life. Thanks for the freakin’ obvious, how about you include idiot-proof how-to manuals and a GPS in your next spiel?

This is hard to admit. For the longest time, I was feeling lost in life. Don’t get me wrong; my support system was great! Family and friends were fantastic, work was okay and bills were paid. I have it better than a lot of people, I know.

However, there was this feeling that I was meant to do something else with my time on earth. A hazy, obscure calling, if you will. But what was it? I didn’t know! How do I start? Haven’t got a clue!

So I did what many do: switched on auto-pilot. Got hooked on Kingdom Rush Frontiers. Watched too many movies and TV shows. Stalked Reddit. Even I knew it wasn’t a fulfilling life.

Then, two things happened:

1) I had an opportunity to send in my CV for a position with an on-line publication, and so I did. And waited for news.

2) I had an opportunity to receive a tarot card reading for cheap, and so I did. As my mind was all work and life paths, that was what I sought advice for.

The soft-spoken tarot card reader, Tristen told me (very nicely) to forget about the job. The position was not mine to fill. Instead, I should check my ego and work on myself.

Do you enjoy writing? Yes that could be a career path, but FIRST you need to START writing. Write every day, write after work, write even if you don’t feel like it.

More importantly, seek out a mentor and join a writing class. No matter the cost; find ways to raise the money if you have to. Make sure that you find a teacher to guide you.

Do this, and help will come. And the path would be clearer for you.

What a wake-up call; nay, a slap in the face! Someone FINALLY called me out, “hey you’re not as good as you think you are!”

But there was hope: if I wanted this – whatever this is – to happen, then I’d better buck up and better myself.

Sounds like your typical logical course of action, right? But you know as well as I do, that when you’re stuck in a phase, the road is never clear for you. You need help. Hopefully you’re lucky enough to have someone to shake you up, kick your arse from your comfort zone.

I was lucky. But to tell the truth, it was scary and humiliating as hell. I didn’t have a lot of skills, but I could string words together to form passages that some people like to read. Or could I? If I didn’t have this identity, there was nothing else for me to hold on to.

Two things resulted from the session:

1) I let go of the desire to get the aforementioned job. Once I decided to do that, I felt a huge wave of relief. The pressure was off, I didn’t have to wait to know if I was good enough for them. I never did hear back, so that settled it.

2) … nothing. Still a fork stuck in the road. Yes I knew I had to find a teacher and a class, but it was always just at the back of my mind. Auto-pilot mode resumed, life happened.

It was a few years before I finally acted on Tristen’s advice.