New Winds

I applied to a yoga teacher training program yesterday.

Today, I’m going to look at Spanish classes this fall.

Then, I’m going to look into cooking classes over the winter.

Did things just shift a little?

This Moment is You

I’m delaying sleep because I’m afraid of tomorrow. Things at work have certainly been looking up and looking better for me lately, but at the same time, I don’t see myself in a long-term thing there and that makes me really restless.

I also REALLY really want a sabbatical of some sort – a year of finding myself, learning new things, doing something unique and exciting. I could work on a coffee farm in Hawaii, learn Spanish and Yoga in Costa Rica, or be a part of a number of volunteer projects across the world (though I tend to be drawn to those in the southern hemisphere).

I am bored and restless. And hope that I’ll soon stop talking about this and actually do it. What’s holding me back? Fear? No. Job security? Nope. It’s money. And that f’ing sucks.

Restless in Minnesota

I’m losing track of the jobs I’m applying for, in state and out of state. Today, I perused MTV Networks/Viacom’s Job Site (which I think is a pretty good one) and applied for two jobs in NYC, one in Santa Monica, and another in Chicago. I know people currently and formerly at MTV Networks at least in NYC and Chicago, so if I REALLY wanted to make it happen, I could probably start making calls or sending emails and using my connections. But I’m still kind of up in the air about my next move.

I’m most excited and interested in the Hawaii plan, but that kind of depends on my travel companion and adventure partner. He’s debating a move across the other pond, and honestly, this isn’t quite something I’m ready to commit to doing myself. I could do Chicago, California, or something like that by myself because the career move would be something similar to what I do now, I’d fall into a routine much like the one I’m in now and I’d get out and make friends. Something about the life I’d be seeking in Hawaii almost necessitates taking a friend with me considering I hope to have more “down time” than a “real job” would allow, and I’d want to explore and experience all of that with someone I could share it with.

I think at this point, I at least know that I want to move SOMEwhere. Either to Hawaii on an adventure, or to another city in more of a career move. I don’t even know that the career move would be an upward one, but it’d be something different than the agency I’m in now.

Anyone ever just picked up and left to do something? I really wish I’d studied abroad in college so I’d have the experience and knowledge of someone who’s traveled like this before.

All I know is that I HAVE to make this happen. I just need to pick a direction. I can’t move forward with any of my plans because I don’t know what to do first.

How About Costa Rica?

Funny. I sat myself down at a nearby coffee shop just now with the intention of doing some writing. I have a couple of different magazines that I owe materials to, and I just wanted to take some time to try to update Lily Pad as well, but I wasn’t sure what I’d really write about. I mean, I know what I want to write about, but I’m not quite ready to make that public yet.

So I sat down, opened my laptop, stirred up my iced coffee and wondered where to start. I decided to start here, with this one, since my next step is still so up in the air.

As soon as I logged in, I overheard the barista behind me say, “How about Costa Rica?”

Funny. I’ve been thinking of a trip there. The Spanish/Yoga classes, maybe some kind of ESL program (not that I speak fluent Spanish, but I intend to).

Anyway, so here I am. Sitting at a coffee shop in St. Paul, MN, wondering how I’m going to get myself on a beach and soon, whether it’s a sabbatical in Costa Rica or an island adventure in Hawaii.

Grace

“Adopt a positive attitude in the face of difficulty.  Imagine that by undergoing a difficult situation with grace you are also preventing worse consequences from karmas that you would otherwise have to experience in the future.  Take upon yourself the burden of everyone’s suffering of that type.”

~ How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama

I Can See Clearly Now

My cousin and I talked tonight about starting (wait for it) a new blog project. One in which I muse my city life waxings and she, her rural perspective. Something of a city mouse/country mouse story. Anyway, she suggested that we pick a topic weekly that we both write about, sometimes they’ll be parallel, sometimes we’ll blatantly disagree. That’s the beauty. Anyway, I told her to pick the first topic.

She picked purpose.

I shit you not.  Ok, so even if I can’t find any answers to my life’s questions just yet… I at least know what it is I’m seeking.

Another Non-Accident

It’s definitely NOT an accident that I stumbled upon this gem of a vacation offering:

La Escuela del Sol

I’m seriously looking into this. It’s affordable, perfectly suited to what I want to do, and is ON THE BEACH! I’ll keep you posted.

Back to School – the first step

I applied for a new job – a Communications Coordinator position at the art museum of the University of Minnesota.  I chose it for two reasons:

1 – I strongly dislike my current job, and this is something in the same communications field that highlights my love of writing without the part about the negotiating.

2 – I think all jobs at the UMN include free tuition as one of their benefits… and since I want to go back to school… well, this seemed fitting.

If I’m going make my plans work, I’ve got to actually put some of these details into action.  One such detail is that, at least on my own dime, I can’t afford to go back to school – at least not full-time.  So, if I can work at the U of M, then perhaps, that little detail helps get taken care of.

Quiero Aprender Yoga

This is all straight outta my notebook this afternoon. Don’t judge the poor grammar or schizophrenia of my thoughts being completely all over the place… but this writing is important. It’s how I ultimately decided what I knew I needed my next steps to be.

It’s probably not a coincidence that the two books I chose to read at the same time were written by two contrasting religious beliefs – one is by a Christian pastor in Texas; the other – the Dalai Lama.

Last week, I wanted to move to Hawaii. I wanted to grab my yoga teacher training certificate here in Minnesota before I left for Hawaii, then use that as my ticket to employment, self-discovery, an escape out of the cube-farm of my corporate career.

This week, I suddenly want to go back to school. Now, I’ve always wanted to go back to school, I’ve just never known what for. Prior to the declaration of my Psychology major, I had planned to major in Spanish while also pursuing a teaching licensure for secondary education. I wanted to be a high school Spanish teacher. But, I abandoned that when I transferred from a private Wisconsin school to the University of Minnesota because the credits didn’t transfer and I’d unlikely be graduating in 4 years. At the time, that seemed really important.

I need a plan that gets me financially stable and caught up enough to do something like this. I want to travel. To teach. Can I teach ESL in a foreign country? What about to kids in Costa Rica?

Things I Want to Do/Achieve (this is completely contrary to Rick Warren’s approach. He said I can’t think in terms of what I want, what my dreams/goals are. Sorry, Rick. I gotta start somewhere.):

travel, speak Spanish fluently, be published in magazines, pay of debt, live on a beach, hike a volcano, camp, white water raft through the Grand Canyon, leave my job, find a rewarding job, spend more time outdoors, make a difference in the lives of teenagers, stop teen pregnancy in STDs, help my friends, write, know God, fall in love, raise a family, continue doing all of this in my marriage and family, get rid of things I don’t need, get in shape, teach yoga, learn nutrition, have my own garden, live alone (maybe? briefly?), sell a greeting card, own a coffee/card/flower shop, meet people from all over the world, stop being afraid of flying, plant a tree with my husband at the house we settle in, name a daughter Seryn, learn Italian, make lasagna, read LOTS of books, study world religions, study yoga and Spanish in Costa Rica, see every Major League Baseball ballpark, tour American history along the east coast, get another tattoo

I have GOT to find a different career. I need to write, learn, study, research.

I spent yesterday cleaning my room. I had crap all over my floor, so what I did was move it all to my bed and just started putting things away from there. I kept looking at the giant pile of clothes and STUFF on my bed and kept telling myself, “The only way to finish this is to keep taking one thing at a time and putting it away. Before you know it, everything will have its place.”

This is wisdom I kind of stole from my friend Rod. We were talking about making big life changes and he reminded me that any accomplishment is a series of smaller actions. If we really WERE going to pick up and move to Hawaii like we’d talked about, the first step is getting on that plane. Once we’re on the plane, we’re doing it. Then we land. And we get out and figure out the next step. And so forth. Until we’ve actually done it.

I’ve taken this advice to heart, especially lately. So – with that in mind, knowing that any accomplishment is the result of a series of smaller actions – I read over my list and decided that if I was going to accomplish ANY of this without getting overwhelmed at the sheer insanity of ALL of it, I had to start with one or two things. So I picked four.

Things I MUST Do:
- learn Spanish (I’m already proficient, so this is just picking up where I left off)
- learn Yoga (not just DO yoga, but LEARN it)
- Save money (aka pay off debt)
- de-clutter my stuff (I have so much junk/crap/shit/clutter/etc., it’s completely ridiculous)

So that’s it. This is where I decided that the first things I would tackle would be learning Spanish and learning Yoga. I’ll worry about the big ones later, and will first set out to accomplish these smaller steps.

I Was Never Not Coming Here

I can reconcile some of Rick Warren’s teachings with something I’ve been holding on to since I read it in Eat Pray Love:  I was never not coming here.

The author in that book says that in response to a friend she met in Bali.  Her friend says something to the effect of, “What would I had done if you hadn’t come here?!”  To which she wrote, I was never not coming here.

That stuck with me, especially in the wake of all of this self-searching, wondering where to take my life.  I was never not coming here. Life is not an accident, I’m not suddenly filled with ideas and dreams to just think and write about them.  Things are suddenly becoming clearer for a reason.

I was always coming here.