En Route

Over the past month, there has one significant change within the constructs of my everyday endeavors. My schedule is almost entirely professional, whether that’s with work or college or background focus elements, meaning that my actual free time is limited, but nonetheless existent. In my blog, Two Triumphs, I discussed the importance of living in the present moment. But living in the moment doesn’t mean casting out the plans for the future. So today we’re actually going to expand on that a bit, as I’ll be speaking about some things I’ve achieved over the past month and how they have influenced my worldview. I did finally start college, so there’s that. As mentioned in All Fired Up, I’m in a film program now, and heavily capitalizing on that. Over the past few years, film has always been an area of interest for me. I only ever saw myself in front of the camera, however. Now I get to explore some other options, like writing screenplays (or just writing period), directing movies, capturing footage, and a number of other cool things. I’m quite enticed to see how the rest of this year pans out in regards to that, because I’d love to start working on some meaningful film projects soon.

Yes, today’s blog is about my life decisions – apologies for the irony of that. As such, I’m not in the spirit for giving lectures or advice today. Sometimes I just want to talk about my life, the things I do, and the people I meet. That doesn’t mean that I care about letting people in, and that’s especially the case since most of the people I know don’t know 10% of the person I have become (as opposed to the person they remember seeing). What it does benefit from, however, is the fact that the Internet presents a beautiful variance called anonymity, which means that it does not matter what I say or how I say it, because in the end all that matters is whether or not I feel better about having said it. So I’m going to lead with the relevant topic of my blog – I have an official one now under my newfound website (don’t attempt to find it because it’s under one of my many aliases). This new blog is not based around personal things or even my life as it is in this blog. It instead focuses on more abstract topics, and my subjective approach to each. Think of narratives akin to Kindred Questions or Why Luck Sucks. In addition to a blog, however, my website incorporates many of my other written works (poems, short stories and such), and thus it is a cohesive way to keep all my work organized, similar to a portfolio of sorts. This is something that I’ve always wanted, and over the course of this month I’ll be working on networking to increase traffic (even though traffic sucks).

This website has been something that I’ve aspired to create for many years, only I did not know to what end. Ever since I wrote “School Days” (a novel) back in 2012, I knew that would only be the beginning of my writing endeavors. And even as though that novel was never published, it was the onset of many more to come. But that meant I had to make a decision: Did I want to compose music or write novels? I mean, I could only pick one, right? At least, I’d only ever have the time to devote to one or the other… or so I thought. As 2013 progressed, I stepped back from my music endeavors to focus more on writing. I nearly finished another novel that year, though it was merely a work in progress that was in no state to be published. By the time 2014 came around, I tried to incorporate both music and writing into my life. Recall that in 2014, I had gotten my first job, which meant that this was the year where my schedule began to fill up. So it was not as easy to give everything equal focus. Nonetheless, I did gain a lot of experience in both areas of my life that year, which helped 2015 influence how I would develop as an author coming into this year. Though, I’ve become so scattered in my interests this year, and that’s because I’ve come to recognize a valuable outlook.

So many people often yield to the idea that they have one calling in life – their “passion.” They turn down opportunities because they are afraid of choosing the wrong path that leads to the wrong future – that everything else standing in the way of their passion should be excluded. What these people miss is that passion can change along with you. I know that I saw myself in many different places over the past five years. Five years from now, I have no idea where I will be, and I like that because the greatest moments come from when you surprise yourself. You can’t succeed and then live; you succeed by living. I know I said I didn’t want to give any advice, but hey; passions change. I will say one thing here: Don’t wait. If there’s something you want to do, my advice is very simply to do it! Explore new interests; try new things. You will never know what life has for you if you keep wasting time finding passion, instead of simply allowing passion to find its way to you.

My only passion now is to experience life. I want to do everything, and try as many things as I can! I want to do little things, like create recipes, make candles, paint a picture, build pottery, and try knitting – even just once, so that I can say I’ve done those things. But I also want to try my hand at everything I don’t have time or money for. There is so much to experience and learn from the world that I don’t want to miss, and if you ask me life is about experiencing as much as you can. Don’t misconstrue my message to be “Abandon your plans.” Instead, read it as “Be open to changing your plans.” If you see something cool that you might want to experience, find a way to integrate it into your schedule, instead of finding a reason not to. For me, I like to give each day a different focus. So let’s say that one day, I might spend the day writing, while the next I might travel and take photographs. By switching it up, the experience is not only refreshed, but I also get new opportunities that I may not have had otherwise. I can do one thing en route to another!

The point of this blog is not to reiterate what you already know about me. It’s to illustrate a simple positive outlook on life. At the end of the day, you’ll look at life however you wish, and that’s great because it means you share a unique perspective. But don’t fall prey to the preconceived notion that you are meant for only one thing, or one category of things. You know, some people have told me that I spend my days writing because I have no life (if you can believe it). Well, I would tell those people that it’s quite the other way around! My experiences in life have given me many things to talk about, many new perspectives, and many lessons to learn. But most importantly, having been forced to adapt amongst many different things, I’ve proven to myself that I can do much more than I previously thought. So now I want to pass that onto you, by reassuring you that you are capable of more than you may think. Explore it and embrace it, and have a good day.

This blog post was very well written, as usual! Like a lot of other young adults, you wish to experience the full extent of your new freedoms. Frankly, when I reach adulthood and have opportunities to experience new things, I wish to do as many as feasible. However, I already have quite a few ambitions, as that is just how I am. Regardless of what type of career I pursue, I wish to go on a cross-country road trip and hike either the Pacific Crest or Appalachian trail.

Because I am only in 9th grade, the closest parallel I currently am experiencing to your desire to experience life is my desire to learn everything I can about this world, especially the science and history behind it. I am taking every opportunity I can get to learn as much as I can. Because of my ambitious attitude, this includes taking double sciences next year just so I can take the AP courses for both Physics and Chemistry alongside AP Calc and AP History courses. I am trying to take these next 3 years of high school as an opportunity to learn as much as I can about the world so I can pursue whatever I want during adulthood. Hopefully, I can continue this trend all throughout college as well!

My outlook on life is similar to the perspective that was just shared, but I find that a better phrasing for me is that I desire to know as much as I can so I can do anything I desire later on.