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

I found what makes me cry and makes me feel high and what makes me willing to give up everything, risk EVERYTHING, to achieve. I connect with it on such a deep level, that truly am devoting my life to it.

I searched for so long, cried a few times. “Why don’t I have a passion?” With the loss of religious came a huge empty space and I desperately needed a cause. I was unhappy. Every option I had didn’t wake me up in the morning, never inspired anything inside me. I read old diaries, looked at 43 things, tried everything I could to look for a career. But the answer isn’t in a career. It’s in a passion and what you believe you must do to improve the world, make a change.

My passion: To inspire and communicate. To bring awareness of reality and a message of freedom. To change the way people live and beautify the world. To create sensations and to connect myself in every way to the arts. To live and love passionately and to walk the earth as my own person, living on my own terms.

And, thus. I’ve returned to my roots in business. I will continue to pursue business AND art history. And one day, I’ll own my own gallery.

If the string of entries full of fear and uncertainty aren’t proof of how I’ve changed over a year, I don’t know what is. It does give me a small sense of pride. I’m a much more confident, mature, and secure person. But hey, A for effort and passion, to my younger self. I just needed to first love and KNOW myself and let go of so many things inside in order to become self-aware enough to do this.

My first one last June screams of a lack of confidence and fear. In fact, I wrote, “I know for sure I’m going to business school, but then what?” which shows I so clearly didn’t want to actually do business, it was just a plan to fill an empty space.

So then a few weeks after writing that I made a list and was at least able to admit my “fear of failure is too strong for me to try them all,” yet I said it must be “fulfilling.” How a job can be fulfilling without risk and giving it your all, I have no idea. It makes me a little sad thinking about my old weaknesses.

Luckily for me, I recognized the path I was on about 2 months later and wrote “I know exactly where I’m headed…the only question left in my head is happiness.” What an amazing, pure internal conflict that I was somehow able to articulate.

FINALLY, a little insight last august and I found…passion, albeit somewhat misdirected passion, I said I would pursue writing and business, though I was unsure of how. 2 months later, reality sets in and the initial excitement wears off. I realize my true love is reading and I made a commitment to abandon business, government, etc. I had basically hit bottom without realizing it and then I began to improve.

In November I discovered a large part of myself in the form of my true interests, arts and sciences and revised my list completely. In January I was frustrated and the change was seriously difficult for me to deal with. So much was crashing down in my personal life and I was trying to lean on old habits…too much newness and I couldn’t even cling to my hopes and dreams of the past. I was a true realist at this point. And that is one hard pill to swallow. From then until February I took a break from thinking. I stopped reading websites, reading, and basically let my life become lost to school and new friends. I just kept busy and eventually I spawned the entry explaining my feelings. I just knew what I felt at the time and tried to explain it, but now I truly understand it.

Isn’t it hilarious how literary it is and how there seems to be a story arc to my freakin life. The moral of the story? I no longer believe whatever specific college major I choose matters and will probably end up as a literature major because…it’s my true love. Oh and I’m seriously considering tacking on a double major in Math because “god is in the numbers.”

“What’s the world’s greatest lie?” the boy asked, completely surprised.
It’s this: That at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That is the world’s greatest lie.”
-Coelho, Paul

I’ve always maintained that a career in science would make me happy, while business would bring success. For some reason it never dawned on me that I decided to pursue science at the exact moment I was forced to grow up and I coincidentally gave up religion. I felt guilt. I was scared of success. I was stopping myself from ever succeeding. A million things. It’s a fad, whereas I’ve always known business is my game. Perhaps I expected a huge change within me once I stopped believing in religion and so I manifested it in changing my life path. Perhaps it bothered me that I would have no struggle to find it; I would never fall into a vat of chemicals and suddenly turn into a mad scientist. Maybe I thought it was boring always knowing what I was going to do. But whatever it was, it wasn’t me.

It’s one more way that Robert Greene’s books have impacted my life. I read them and decided I wasn’t ready for the cut-throat world, didn’t want to be in in. It still scares me, but I don’t give a shit any more.

I’m a slave to school.
I’m a slave to my own loner tendencies.
I’m a slave to my own loss of faith in humanity and religion.

On one hand it is very liberating to be so unencumbered. My parents pay for everything, I haven’t chosen a major. I just feel like the future is wide open and I love it, but there is, as Stuart Little says, “an empty space.” I’ve severed my connections to everybody that matters in this world. I’m utterly alone. A black sheep. This fucking college is exactly like a high school, except my high school had over 2,000 people and this college (a studying abroad campus) has an estimated 300. I can tell that people wonder about me. They feel sorry for me, which is humorous because I merit no pity. They speak English to me, the language of formality.

Religion was my crutch, my security blanket. It allowed me to be smug and stay happy. It allowed me to be a terrible person. I’ve lost…my soul, my belief in a soul. I’m…an animal, slave to my little animalistic desires. Right now I just have very little drive to make friends. I’ve grown bitter, disenchanted. The ridiculous lifestyle I’ve been living. This fucking Mercedes world, flashy cell phones and wooing friends with fancy rims, driving by the beggers, forming the cross on your chest. Fuck it all.

So what do I do? Study my ass off. All the time. Get A’s to get out of here. Oh and use sentence fragments instead of complete sentences.

Who, if anybody, will break down these walls I’ve built?

1) Gemologist
I’ve spent hours upon hours in jewelry stores growing up (My dad is a serious watch enthusiast) and I’ve always been interested in the jewel aspect of the profession.

2) Museum Curator
Ok, this is far from my most realistic dream, but I would actually love this job. The first time I ever really became aware of this job was from the movie Head Over Heels where the main character is a restorative painter for a museum. It sparked my interest.

3) Writer
This isn’t realistic either, but I can’t exactly abandon a career because it isn’t realistic. Think big, right? But really, I’ve kept a diary for almost 10 years and I write something everyday. Actually, I write essays in my spare time and read books constantly. I’m aware that my writing has flaws though.

4) Professor
This sounds pretty appealing to me, especially if I was a professor of Biology or Cognitive Science. Stephen Pinker has influenced me a lot and I really do find this field the most interesting.

5) Art Dealer
See “Museum Curator.” I’m a life long aesthetics enthusiast and I value the beautiful things in life, but I cannot bring myself to like most modern art, Audrey Flack is the first exception which comes to mind, which presents a problem. I can either learn to love it or at least appreciate it, or stick to museums.

8) Cognitive Scientist, or whatever their official title, and there are many, is. The biggest obstacle for me is math. I know I would have to take a lot of science and math, which isn’t the best path for me. But the theoretical aspects and potential for merging of disciplines draw me to it.

This list is a complete 180 from everything I considered almost 6 months ago. But you know what, I’m indecisive, and I accept it. These choices make much more sense taking my actual skill set into consideration, as well as what I genuinely have had an interest in.

Discovery of the truth, or at least greater truth, is somewhat bitter sweet. I feel like I’m entirely starting over with my education, which is a good, yet daunting, task.

Since I don’t actually know anybody on here, I’ll admit this. I used to be a devoted Alexandra Robbins (she popularized the secret society speculation trend and wrote about sororities), Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky (only his political stuff), etc, fan. I wasted so much time thinking about their bullshit ideas and frankly, they really shaped my young and malleable little mind. It was a well-meaning introduction to the realm of knowledge, but I was very misguided. At least I could blame my parents to some extent because of their belief in conspiracies. Though now that I’ve actually learned to read a primary source, read the entire Bible, and generally have just read a lot of books that have opened up new worlds to me, I see that there are numerous other paths opened up to me.

The “doctor, lawyer, professor, whatever” epidemic the adults in my life were raised in completely made them despise anything except business and have drilled that mindset into my brain. Since my last entry and actually getting a job where I’m heavily involved in a business, I’ve realized that business is NOT for me. I don’t like the cut-throat and callous people in it, nor the empty mindless tedious tasks, though the money is nice. It’s all part of the discovery process, I suppose.

I’m trying to start from the bottom up, reexamining everything that I’ve shown interest in as a child but have been talked out of. I have an inkling of an idea but it changes with every entry I make so I’m not even going to bother mentioning it.

I just had the most unexpected epiphany. I basically looked in the mirror and told myself to take life by the damn horns.
I got the ultimate wake up call to stop whining and I felt the slap. Self-pity does nothing. Whining about going to a state school does nothing. I’m growing up and growing into my own skin, and I need to just stop talking and start actually doing.

I’ve let criticism get to me lately and I forget how many people are miserable and take it out on other people. I have known all along exactly what I was supposed to do, but dismissed it as life being hard and not wanting to put in the work. Well, I’m kicking my life up a notch and I’m getting off my ass, and I’m not letting stupid fears stand in my way.

Recently I overcame something that few people can say they have done. I was almost ready to give up, but I didn’t. It made me realize how pathetic I, and others who ever pity themselves, am. I had to listen to my soul and I knew that it wasn’t right to sit down and let life knock me out because that isn’t who I am.

For the first time in my life, the path is clear. It is a little scary, but that is just the adreneline from rage pumping through my veins. I’m getting the business degree I’ve always salivated after AND I’m going to pursue writing. I’ve heard so many times in my life that the ultimate success story includes a happy work life and a happy personal life, and I don’t see why I have been limiting myself soley because I was scared. No success comes from fear and that, my friends, is my new mantra.

“All those people that give you shit and tease you about your book, or art, or music, or whatever… fuck them. Fuck. Them. They aren’t trying to do what you’re doing. They aren’t doing anything creative, or innovative, or challenging. Fuck them and watch how they change when your art succeeds”-
Chuck Palahniuk

I know exactly where I stand in life and where I’m currently headed. I’m confidant that I will suceed. The only thing left to question is my happiness. I can see myself working nonstop and being ok…but will I really be satisfied?

ok I wrote an entry a few days ago but here is the more thought out version (like you care! haha)

I’m staying in Panama for at least one more year and then transfering to the Spain campus and then (likely but pending) the one in Italy. I’m majoring in International Business/International Affairs with a minor in Econ. then on to the get the MBA. I might go to more countries..who knows? But at least I know what I’m doing with my life.

This is not crossed off my list yet because I don’t have the campuses all planned out. I might go crazy and stay in Panama…eek.

I’ve narrowed it down to a reasonably short list but my fear of failure is too strong for me to pursue a lot of them. Stupid I know…its just one of those things. My job needs to be fulfilling. I want to either be poor and help people. Or rich so that I can help them. I don’t really want anything in between. I’m not living paycheck to paycheck for nothing.

1. Business/Corporate Law as was suggested on my last entry.
2. Foreign Service/Diplomat/Mediator
3. Peace Corps….although you need to have a career before you do this so I guess this isn’t realistic.

and the things I wouldn’t pursue
1. Buyer (fashion)
2. Image consultant