I think there is one quote in particular that is responsible for the sudden change of pace in my life...
Usually when I see this quote on Instgram I find myself scrolling past it faster than a cat picture. Why? because even the picture itself scares me.
The way I see it is - why do scary shit everyday when you can just cruise harmoniously through life doing fun, enjoyable and relaxing stuff instead? We all know the answer to that.
I will explain how this relates to the week I've just had after I give you a little background info...
For the last four months I have been unemployed. For the first three months when people asked me what my job was I would over compensate for the fact that I had no job by saying stuff like:
"I don't have a job at the moment because I am a full-time university student, in my last semester of my degree and I am also a blogger and I'm trying to expand my audience by doing a lot of promotional stuff which takes up a lot of time and I actually planned to be unemployed because prior to my current occupational status I was working in public relations and at a bar and did I mention that I'm a full time university student campaigning to stop men from shaving their chest hair?"
Fuck.
And no matter how hard I tried to convince them, they would always give me the same look which pretty much said "ah yeah, sure thing you massive bludger".
And then under a month ago my attitude changed and I found myself going from the huge, exhausting response above to just:
"Well, I don't have a job at the moment"
I still got that same look but I figured that I was the lucky one who had all the free time in the world to do the stuff I love.
And didn't I absolutely milk those four months for all they were worth...
I moved a lot
And sat on rocks and pondered the meaning of life
I exercised my baking skills
And pondered some more...
I drank a lot of tea and read a lot of free magazines that I picked up on the street (could no longer afford my beloved trashy weeklies and monthlies)
I ate a lot of breakfast in Surry Hills - for research purposes only ;) The Surry Hills Breakfast Club
And moved some more
And then combined my love of moving with my love of socialising
And spent every spare second by the sea
Of course there was more to the last four months than just moving, socialising, cooking and pondering...I also did a fair bit of heavy research based study (blogging)...
You could say that my life was pretty amazing...perfect even. I was sublimely happy doing a whole lot of nothing, that was until last week when I was scrolling aimlessly through Instagram and bam there it was again. I tried to scroll past it but my page wouldn't refresh. Refresh you bastard refresh!
So I decided to face the quote which immediately made me feel guilty because the truth was that I hadn't done one scary thing since I quit my job. Just because I hadn't been out of my comfort zone in a while didn't mean that I hadn't watched others around me face their fears and reap the benefits.
I watched an incredible girl apply for a promotion and get it, my brother decide that he was going to go for school captain (which is something I chickened out of in high school because I was too worried that people weren't going to vote for me), watch a close friend completely conquer his fear of public speaking and a girlfriend break up with the guy she had been with for five years. These were just a handful of the cases that I witnessed and while my family and friends were facing their fears what was I doing? Sitting on a rock somewhere and making up problems in my head to ponder.
So, I decided to actually stop fucking around and do something everyday this week that not only made me feel a little bit uncomfortable but scared the absolute shit out of me.
This is what I came up with:
- I walked into a place I could see myself working at and applied for a job
- I put myself through a ridiculously awkward Skype job interview with the two owners of the company that I wanted to work for
- I stood up in front of 50 strangers and pitched an idea that I thought people would think was a massive joke (and not in the good way)
- I fitted a bra on a nude middle aged woman and then tried to convince her I knew what I was talking about when it came to luna beads
- I told a guy who I like absolutely everything on my mind no matter how stupid or insignificant it probably sounded.
- and for the first time in my life I allowed a room full of people to brutally anaylise and pick to shreds a personal portfolio of work.
The result?
- I got a job that I actually LOVE
- I made new friends
- I got constructive feedback on my writing style
- I was accepted by a room full of complete strangers for my outrageous idea
- I learnt that luna beads are increible for strengthening your pelvic muscles and that middle aged women will pay over $200 to have them strengthen theirs
- Had the guy I like look at me like I was a bit of an emotionally unstable dickhead but the new outlook I gained outweighed the awkwardness of having the conversation.
Just by doing something that frightened me everyday I experienced some really incredible gains. I also experienced more developments in my life in one week than during an entire four month period. Thats not to say that I didn't nearly shit myself everyday this week. As you can imagine after four months of unemployment I wasn't exactly equipped to handle the stress that I was suddenly putting on myself.
So look the moral of this story is that doing shit that scares you is not fun in fact it can be fucking horrifying but that is why it is so important that we challenge ourselves everyday. Removing ourselves from our comfort zones once in a while is essential to our development as strong capible human beings. Like an instagram feed we can coninue to scroll through life or we can stop and take a look at the bigger picture, honing in on the aspects of our lives that can be improved just by making a few ballsy choices. Without fear, without weakness we cannot truly experience life's great successes...yeah you might feel like you're in over your head but its better to be out there in the rat race than sitting on a rock somewhere pondering the life that you could have if you were just brave enough to go and get it.
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