Victoria - Seventh Day Posting

Second last day here on the island. It's been a good trip, and I've done a lot of soul searching during my visit. Some things I thought I was certain about (horticulture, moving to B.C.), I'm not so certain of anymore. Other ideas have popped into my head. It seems I'm always chasing something. I recognize the feeling; it's like I always need to be progressing towards something, rather than just being happy as I am right now. That could very well be why all these "dreams" of mine turn out to be phantoms in the end. In the process of trying to figure out what I want to do with my life, as I always seem to be doing, I came across a very timely blog post from Paid to Exist about discovering one's passion and making a living from it:

Most of us, after endeavoring on such an exploratory mission, will expect a very clear and concrete answer. We anticipate a Magic 8 Ball to miraculously tell us that “Your future lies in 18th century cast iron welding.”

Not only do we expect immediate specificity, we expect angels to burst from the heavens and our heart to light up in a blaze of glory at our reunion with what we love.

And to make matters worse, we dismiss any answer or clue that isn’t incredibly specific or doesn’t incite tremors of enthusiasm. The problem is that we expect the fruits of our labor before we’ve toiled in the field.

This is a mistake. Our path will never become completely clear until we start walking it. And we will never be fully excited until we are knees-deep in the work.

 So my problem is expecting the immediate specificity of what I should do, as well as expecting an immediate return on my initial forays into any given venture. It is rather immature, to be completely honest. I had never realized just how silly my frame of mind was on the whole issue of pursuing a passion. In addition to all this, I usually quit early on or even before starting because I didn't have complete information right from the get go.

I'm the type of person who likes to know as much as possible about a decision before the decision is made. I am risk averse, so I feel I need to know what the pay offs will be for the time and effort I expend. This obviously results in analysis paralysis; I spend all my time trying to get as much info about a given decision, and if it looks like I'm unable to map out the process from start to finish knowing with near 100% certainty how it'll turn out, I'll avoid it. I don't like having unanswered questions in my analysis.

So I'm basically back at square one (again) trying to figure out what the hell to do with myself. I just realized that when I'm moving backwards with my lifestyle, it's because I want to move back to those things society deems as secure: the cubicle job, the family, the house, the wife, the kids, etc. And the reason why I gravitate towards those supposed sources of security is because I'm scared to take the leap and live my life my way. So really, all it's going to take is a little courage, and a lot of patience.