I’ve reflected a lot on the theme of change from the moment I created this blog. It was something I had a hard time dealing with as a teen, and it ultimately resulted in writing being used as my emotional/mental outlet. Usually every time I create a new blog post it pertains to a substantial change in my life. For some that’s the objective of a blog. I have no desire to write endless Twitter-like posts about what I’m drinking, eating, or thinking every five minutes. I have to keep suspension high somehow.
To update my last blog post: I’m certificate-less from the National Academy of Sports Medicine. My six measly wrong answers cost me satisfaction after six months of studying and not a cross off the bucket list. Alas, with $200 more (after the initial $1k chump change), I SHOULD be able to get certified. Many factors went into my failure: I didn’t use the full test time allotted, there were many terms I neglected to remember, and I simply gave up. If I had a job that depended on this advancement, I maybe would have worked harder, but it was just something I wanted to do for myself, and apparently that wasn’t good enough. The opportunity will come again.
With that opportunity, I embarked on another journey — crossing over to the dark side to public relations/communications work. I may not be an avid newspaper reporter, but the journalism genes will never fade. Send me some fake news, I dare you.
I decided to leave the newspaper and serve as the communications director for a small coffee company that I was already baking for. It allows me to explore a completely different realm of work that I was already digging into with interviewing and telling stories. All I have to say is that taking photos of people is a lot different when you don’t have a press badge around your neck and a notebook hanging out of your bum pocket. Now, I design things, strategically post online, analyze analytics, promote the company’s story and gather staff’s thoughts in order to improve the business among a number of umbrella duties.
This allows me to excel using social media and various internet softwares and platforms such as designing a website, graphics, links, etc.
One thing I find hard to grasp is the idea of learning on command — sort of sounds like my entire high school career. I’m used to walking into a door, locating a task and executing it, but, that’s not the case when you have to create the tasks to execute, or first, learn how to create the task in order to execute it.
Learning to learn and learning to accept failure are my most recent fascinations. The first takes patience (what’s that?) and the second also takes patience but also self-confidence and self-motivation.
By any means I don’t have a hard life, I’m just determined to improve what I have. This can be considered a parallel to fitness — my primary hobby/secondary focus. If you harp on the things you hate about your body, the self-confidence will only fade and it will become harder to build it back up. It takes a lot of energy to hate yourself, but even more to improve it. That’s why hating something is so easy. Turn it around and look at it as self-improvement —improve features you have instead of reinventing them. You have to work with the body you’re given, just like I’m shuffling the cards that were dealt to me until one hand looks better than the last.
I can’t ask for more cards, but I can rearrange the ones I already have.
Enough of the parallels and metaphors — take new opportunities and learn from them. If not, make the most out of what you have to be happy, because the opposite isn’t an option.