Gate of life

July 21, 2017 MiaLeave a comment

white gate You might know the saying, ‘When one gate closes, another opens’ I’ve had a lot of those but unfortunately none of them has been the right one. If it’s about what schools I’ve attended, places I’ve been to or the people I’ve met. I’ve learned through life that it doesn’t matter what you’ve done in the past. All you can do is look forward. At least to the near future. People I’ve met when I was a kid doesn’t matter anymore. That’s why it’s called the past. I don’t want to keep in touch with people who didn’t appreciate me and I don’t care what they do today. They’re irrelevant.

If I had a time machine, I wouldn’t want to go back. It would have been nice to keep my mother alive though. But you can’t change the past. Maybe I’ve said this before in some post but if I hadn’t been through what I have, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. Things you go through in life are a lesson you learn and you do things a different way. There are mistakes I’ve done several times just to make sure and I’ll continue to do them. It’s a mistake I make every time I meet new people. Maybe they’re not mistakes but a part of my personality. First I decide to be brave but when the time comes, I get back to my shell. I just don’t feel secure enough around people I don’t know. I’m not an open book but still, people notice I’m an introvert. In their eyes, it’s shyness since the word introvert is not a familiar word. I shouldn’t need to explain myself to others. It’s their problem if they don’t want to approach me because I’m reserved.

The most difficult gate to open is finding a job. You would think someone with different skills would get a job easier but it’s not. The older you get, the worse it becomes. A real job with real pay and not an internship where the employer gets cheap labour force. I can’t seem to get my foot in the door of any company. What’s the point of having a couple of degrees when you can’t impress anyone who could hire you? I do admit I’m a bit lazy to send out applications but when you can’t find anything suitable to apply for, then I can’t find the point of applying to just anything. I’ve applied to two companies who do web design but no luck. I’ve had problems of finding my niche in careers and when I finally find one, it’s not good enough. Maybe it would be better to start working for myself instead of working for someone else. It’s getting more tempting as the autumn gets closer. I did enjoy the time when I worked for a client on the job learning. Having a choice when to work was freedom. I’ve always wanted to work on the internet so maybe web design is the answer to my wishes.

I’m actually bored with trying to find the right gate of life. My sin is laziness. I lack ambition and I’m always been afraid of taking risks. There are things in life that I will miss having to experience but I’ve settled with my destiny. Even there’s still time, the fact is I’m not getting any younger. If they made a movie of my life, it would be the most boring movie ever made. On my tombstone, it would probably say, ‘She lived’ and that’s it. The harsh truth is some gates will be unopened and that’s something you just have to accept.

My lost grit

July 11, 2017 Mia3 Comments

grit road and mountains I can honestly say, I have no grit. I give up as soon as things feel impossible. That’s the reason why I haven’t had a successful life. There have been times I had that grit but most of the time it’s lost. I quit my educations twice because I felt it was too hard. One was the business school but that doesn’t actually count since one of the reasons why I quit was because the atmosphere in class was awful. But the second education was photography. I was only there about 2 months because it wasn’t what I expected. I just gave up too easily. That’s something I regret but I was too influenced by the teacher who was too old-fashioned to even consider there are other ways to photograph. If only digital photography would be a thing at the time.

The time I did have the grit was when I studied graphic design. It was a two-year education. I had some motivation problems and I almost thought of quitting. But I thought to myself to take a grip so I hang on there. I didn’t want to have that 3rd school quitting thing on my record. After that, I’ve decided I wouldn’t quit any school no matter how hard it would become. It really has held this far. For a while, I did lose that grit when I studied web design. There was a difficult moment when we learned coding. But in the end, it was worth going through that stage. I did not give up and now I have a qualification in web design. Now I can officially say what I’ll do if someone asks. I’m a web designer.

I really need that grit back because it looks like I won’t get a job in web design. The other option is freelancing but that takes a lot of courage and grit. There is a change to be part-time and that’s called light entrepreneurship. It’s a good way to practise how to work for yourself. But still, you need to find clients on your own. That is the most difficult part and of course how much your client has to pay for your work. Planning is not really my strongest point and I usually end up empty handed. There’s a lot of pressure to be different from the others. There’s so much at stake and if you have no grit, it will be even harder. I don’t have that business mind and marketing myself is a lot of work. It already feels like I shouldn’t even try because of the workload you need to do. On the other hand, there is more freedom to work for yourself. You work on your own but yet you have that client you work for. The downside is that if you don’t work, you don’t get paid. I don’t want to lose my spare time either. I wish I had that grit like my father have. If grit runs in the family, then it must have skipped a generation.

Life is never easy. If it was, I would have that grit. I would have a lot if life was easy. You play with the cards you’re given. I have some grit in me and that’s getting over my problems. Getting through life is the main thing and not how successful you can become. Enjoying life in small doses is good enough for me and that’s a grit everybody should have.

Tallenna