career

Be a Chef

~ tonirib ~ Leave a comment

“Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.” – Richard Feynman

I’m going to start out this post by linking to the Wait But Why final blog on Elon Musk. It’s super long and it will take you more than an hour to read, but you should read it.

Now I’ll pretend like you read it since I’m sure most of you didn’t when you realized I was totally serious about it being very long, but I’m going to structure this post based off of it.

The main concept in there is that in the world there are chefs (people who follow their own path, question everything, constantly reevaluate themselves, aren’t afraid to speak up or change, etc.) and cooks (people who, to some extent, follow what they have been told is true). I read the entire article and I would like to think that I am a chef, and I think that if you’ve been reading this blog you might actually agree.

Here’s why:

I write in Speak Up about being unafraid to say what’s on your mind and to state what you’re actually thinking even when you may have some (unfounded) fear of something bad happening because of it.

I write in The Lost Art of Wanting about evaluating what you really want, versus what you just think you want (and maybe why you think you want it).

I write in You Are Not an Event about it being okay to fail, because even if you fail it doesn’t make you a failure, so you shouldn’t be so afraid to fail in the first place.

I write in Comparisons (and the Death of Your Happiness) about using comparisons to as a tool to figure out what you want and how to get it, instead of just thinking about what you don’t have.

I write in The Nature of Change about not being able to know everything about yourself from the beginning and the importance of constantly re-evaluating who you are what what you want and why you want something.

I could go on, but I’ll stop there.

I realized that the entire point of this blog (which has always been a little unclear to me since the beginning) is to convince other people that they can be chefs. That there is nothing special about me that allows me to quit my job, to speak up, to embrace change, to say ‘fuck it’ to the things I’ve been told will make me happy. There’s no reason why you can’t look at the world the way I do, why you can’t act upon what you really want to do, and why you can’t embrace change right now to be more of who you want to be.

Be a chef. If I haven’t convinced you yet, and Tim from Wait But Why hasn’t convinced you yet, then I guess you’ll just have to keep reading this blog in the hopes that one day I’ll convince you.

Your life is too short to spend it in autopilot.

Waiting

~ tonirib ~ Leave a comment

“And she called out a warning: Don’t ever let life pass you by”
– Warning by Incubus

As of today, I am waiting.

Waiting to hear back on if and when I can change my career. But really, I’ve been waiting for a few months now since I needed to figure out a plan to pay off all our credit cards and then save up enough money to quit my job and not work for at least half a year. That took time, and patience, and learning how to do something I’m not used to doing.

The very first tattoo I got was music notes for the song Warning by Incubus. “Don’t ever let life pass you by.” I wanted to remember not to let fear hold me back. To always go for something I want, when I want it, instead of waiting and letting the right moment pass me by.

You always regret want you didn’t attempt far more than what you tried and failed at.

So for the last 8 years, I’ve pretty much lived in the moment. Especially since getting a job after college, because I’ve finally had money to finance all the fun things I want to do. If I want to go to a concert at Red Rocks, I buy tickets. I wanted to get out of Los Angeles, so I moved. How about getting drunk with my husband at a brewery and buying a super soft t-shirt that I probably don’t need? You bet.

Because hey, I don’t want the fun things in life to pass me by. I want those spontaneous moments, and I want them now.

It’s been more difficult than I expected to change that philosophy when it comes to something I really want, but that forces me to stop living in the moment to achieve it. I want to change my life by changing my career, and that means I need think twice before purchasing so I can save money. I have to keep reminding myself that I will be able to do these things later. Once I get through the rest of 2015 and half of 2016.

It’s really not that long. When all of this is over, I’ll probably have a new job I’m happy with (finally!!!) by June 2016. Less than a year away. But for someone who has spent most of the last 8 years doing the thing she wants when she wants it, a year seems like a long time. I also love spontaneous fun and have the patience of a small child. It’s hard to keep my goal in mind when I’m out drinking and someone asks if I want to buy tickets to an expensive concert (which I technically have the money for) or when I’m sitting at home studying when all I really want to do is watch Pretty Little Liars on Netflix. It’s not just money I need to save, I also have to learn how to take my previously-known-as “free time” and turn that into “learning time” and “work time.”

It has certainly been a slow process for me. Sometimes all I want to do is curl up with a nice glass of whiskey and watch 4 episodes of Lost Girl, which used to be a perfectly acceptable thing for me to do for the last 4 years since any time after 5pm is “free time” for me. But does it really help me achieve my goals now that I’m trying to accomplish something more?

That’s what I try to focus on. When I go to bed, I like to ask myself, “Did you help achieve your goals today?” And when I wake up the next morning I ask myself, “Are you going to help achieve your goals today?”

I find asking myself a question – even if its the same question – every day helps keep me on track. I don’t beat myself up when I haven’t helped (like buying a $135 Cat Hat….but that was totally necessary, right?) but I try to do better the next day.

In the end, it still comes down to waiting. Waiting to do the things I want to do. Waiting to have enough money and time to do them. Waiting to hear if I’m going to be allowed to do them.

While I’m waiting, I realize I’m not changing my philosophy at all. I’m simply revising it slightly. I’m not letting life pass me by, I’m taking the steering wheel and turning it in another direction. This is the right time and I’m following my own advice and acting on it. Some of the small, short-term things may slide by my window and I’ll feel a little sad about them, but my end goal is clearly in sight.

Now I I’m just waiting to hear if I can step on the gas pedal.