decide what the hell I would like to do with the rest of my life

I made another dinner for me and my sister tonight, and her friend said over the phone that I should look into becoming a chef, given how much I enjoy cooking.

Rather than dismiss the idea right away (as I was about to do), I said I would think about it. After all, how am I going to decide whether or not I truly would like to be a chef or cook or baker or something like that, if I don’t allow myself the luxury of thinking about it?

http://zenhabits.net/2009/09/the-world-needs-you-to-do-what-you-love/

I may try to sit down and answer some of the questions posited here.

So, in the dream I had last night, there was a part near the end in which I went to a portable and met up with two people from my scholastic past, one of them a respected professor, another his protege. I can’t tell you enough how well I hold these people in my esteem, especially the professor, and especially in his ability to look at life critically and come back with a fairly comprehensive, clear, and biting view of things as they are on the ground. He’s very good at taking on things that are so big that most people never see them in their entirety and using that vision to explain the small, the right here, the right now, the immediate why driven by the unseen what.

While there, he got angry, and to comfort him, I gave him a great big hug – it was a loving, intimate embrace that really connected us for just a moment – and then I went out, returned to my car, and eventually drove off.

So, according to the dream dictionary, the hug would be a kind of drawing closer of parts of my personality which the person represents. Given he’s a professor of biology, which I just recently took a degree in, and given that I left after the dream hug, I think it means that my flirtation with science may be coming to an end. The thing that drove me to study the subject has been satisfied in a life-altering way, and now I can move on to the next thing.

I fell asleep thinking, maybe I don’t want to be a scientist, and I think this dream was a kind of answer. It says to me, you’ve become reconciled to this huge aspect of life which was troubling you so much, and now you can make an exit from this path that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. After all, if science was my true path, I think all the opportunities that have landed in my lap would have included one which came to fruition, and I would be doing it already. As it were, that’s not how things worked out.

Now I have to wonder, where was I going? I feel so much relief in admitting this to myself in a way that isn’t a failure that this question is downright exciting at present. Hopefully, it will be fun to find out.

I’ve been in talk therapy for a year now, and it’s had the great benefit of building up my self-confidence in a noticeable way. It’s shown me just how down on myself I’ve been, and for quite a long time, and I can see now how this question of what I want to put myself to do could be nearly impossible to answer if you think you just aren’t good enough for the things you want.

I’d have to say this has been my #1 obstacle to figuring out my life path, and now that I see that, there’s hope that I can find a way to clear this obstacle and get on with a life plan, a life, some fun!, some work, better times.

There’s a seed of an idea germinating in my brain that I might enjoy the work of written translation, which would require more school, but I think it would be well worthwhile. I like Spanish a lot, and I think there’s a pretty decent market for that type of work, especially in Texas. The independent aspect of the work suits my introverted nature, and it might pay well enough to help me reach some of my other goals.

I’ll have to look into this more. With confidence in myself that I can do it, and do it well.

So I had to do one thing toward this goal today. I guess the biggest two things I did in this service were to buy a pair of mud boots and a yoga mat. I know, you can’t buy a life, but you should always provide yourself with the tools you need to live and work. To that end, I now have good mucking around boots for bug collecting and seed hunting, which is a kind of acknowledgement that I will allow myself the time to do these things, because I value them. I will also provide for myself a yoga mat that I can take to classes – the one I’m making for home practice will be too big to be serviceable – and this tells me that I may be ready to renew my practice for real.

So, what else does a yoga-doing, bug-collecting, seed-hunting woman want to do with her life? I think a LOT of things go with that. The question is, which things go with me?

...where I might belong. I think this one will be on my list for a long time, but I guess I’m okay with that. It’s a worthy question to keep asking from time to time.