Post #3: Figuring Things Out

"You will recognize your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need."

-Jerry Gillies

Working in marketing, I spend a lot of my time reading and researching blogs. I know what people are looking for...consistency, branding, your name, what your blog is about, your contact information, etc. It leaves me with a hankering to create an amazing blog that is interesting for people to read. It makes me yearn for the days back in high school when I had a blog that was so genuine and thoughtful. It was a place where friends and friends of friends could learn about me, and I could learn about them. We shared stories, ideas, experiences, wisdom, and creativity. We waxed philosophic about our dreams and aspirations, and we offered support and words of encouragement.

Today I overheard someone say, "For technical writing, I would go to Cate. She's good at that. Creative writing? I'd say [insert name other than Cate here]." Well this was certainly a punch in the gut for me. I'm the youngest child, the creative one, the one with the active imagination. I've always fancied myself a creative person. "Technical." How boring. How passionless. How...insulting. Sure, I'll take the compliment because I know it's my fastidiousness over grammar that led to this assessment of my skills in technical writing. It was just a blow to my ego to hear that someone thought I was somehow not capable of writing creatively. Are you serious? But that's always been my "thing."

This led me to face the impending quarter-life crisis that I have felt bubbling up beneath the surface of my soul for at least a year now. I've always been pretty good at a lot of things: singing, writing, problem-solving. I've just never been the best at anything. I'm interested in a million and one things, though: French, sign language, traveling, cooking, crafting, drawing, organizing, playing piano, writing songs, and the list goes on and on. I've always been okay with that, but there's this lack of follow-through that I suffer from ("from which I suffer," I know, I know).

I read these blogs day in and day out, and there are these people with extraordinary skills when it comes to crafting, sewing, cooking, writing, photography, and so on and so forth. They have so much to offer and such an abundance of knowledge and expertise in their areas of interest. I'm nothing but a jack of all trades and a master of none. I can't even come up with my own phrases to describe myself. I have to stick to worn-out cliches to describe my plight, my rut.

I just want to find something I'm passionate about and run with it. I guess that's what we're all looking to do. I suppose we all fall victim to the day-to-day of doing laundry, catching up on bills, cooking dinner, running errands. The small things in life are what take up the majority of our time. I want to change that. I want to fit in some yoga, some pleasure reading, some sketching, some video tutorials on how to play piano or learn sign language.

I want to become an interesting person. I want to have something to offer. I want to contribute. But how?