Fishstick Friday

Ben and I have both gone to Portland a million times but we never see the city its usually stictly family time. So we decided that we would spend a day in P-town as tourists. It was incredibly selfish of us and a ton of fun.

In true B.S. fashion we ended up not doing a whole lot. Well it was hot and we were tired, so we ate and drank a lot and took a nap in a park.

Here is our day in pictures:

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about things that I want to do sometime in my life. I think this trip (and the fact that we are ACTUALLY DOING IT) has really opened my eyes to how much control I have over my own life. Which sounds weird but I think you get what I’m saying. I’m feeling less constrained by thoughts of “you should be doing this now” and more often thinking things like “that would be awesome, how could I make that happen?”.

So I’ve started…in my head…a rough “life list” of everything that I want to do in my life. I’m not including things like get married and have kids because I already know I want to do those things, these are outside of what I would consider my realm of “normalness”.

1. Travel the world (I had to put on gimmie on here that I could easily check off!)

2. Spend a summer on a sail boat in the San Juans

3. Live for a few months in a small city outside of Paris

4. Bike across Hawaii

5. Take a road trip from Washington to the coast of Mexico

6. Go to Vermont in the Fall

7. Take a motorcycle trip through Australia

8. Drive up to Alaska

9. Go on a kyaking camping trip

10. Learn to make my own clothes

11. Have a big vegetable garden

12. Learn photoshop and make my photoalbums

13. Learn about website design and make some money via the sites I design

14. Help build something like a house or a barn or a port-a-potty

15. I tired to round out the list by ending at 15 but I can’t think of the last one

There is a small part of me that feels a little lame that I only have 14 things on my list, well technically 13.

I’m a motivated person.

I always have been and am sure I will always be. But I have a hard time with this side of my personality. This stems from the fact that I view my “motivated” behavior as leading me down the same path as my mom, who has many other redeeming qualities, but when it comes down to it is addicted to work. I understand how this can happen on some levels (I’ll leave my mom out of this post now because the intricacies of our relationship are vast and pretty boring to most outsiders and I am actually still learning about them myself), achieving success at work can be really addictive. You gain respect and admiration from your peers and you advance in your career which causes you to make more money and have more responsibilities and its a continuous cycle.

Its applicable to any aspect of your life - the feeling you get from people valuing your contribution is incredibly satisfying and for some (like me) addicting. It makes you feel good about yourself, makes you feel smart, savvy and respected. Its kinda like crack. Or thats how I feel when I do crack.
Anyway my internal battle begins to flare up at this point. I think I have an interesting perspective having lived almost my entire life with a workaholic who didn’t often make the right* decisions in her home life (ok, ok its impossible for me to not mention her a couple of times in this post) because of work pressures. I never want to be that way but unfortunately I am currently in a profession that, on some levels, measures dedication and drive in ways that encourage workaholicism (I think I just made up a new word). This fact always makes me think that I am in the wrong line of work.

Then I get anxious. Then I start thinking about all the things that I could be doing that are not the job I am currently doing, then I get really anxious.

And then I decide to write this post titled “Finding Bliss” because for some reason in my head I think that if I have the perfect job I will find bliss. But that makes me pause and say “why do I equate finding bliss with the perfect job?”

Ultimately I think my definition of the words “job” and “career” have been skewed. I think that it is possible to have a job and career that bring you great amounts of bliss AND work within the lifestyle you create. The challenge now is to figure out what that could be for ME. The great thing is that I have conveniently pushed this reality out at least another year or so… But I’m sure this will be top of mind as I travel around the word….right.

Here are a few of the things that float around in my head when I think about new careers:

Fashion design, freelance consulting, writing blogs for money - even better: writing a TRAVEL blog for money, travel agent, massage therapist, boutique owner…..the problem is the list goes on and on.

I think I blame a lot of this confusion on age and experience and I’m crossing my fingers that a little more of both will help point me in the right direction.

*Right = my opinion on what is right.