You Can Thank the Other Red Head for This One

I was discussing with a coworker today how I feel that my trouble with being tired of the ups and downs of work are probably due to a lack of balance in my personal life. I don't mean "work/life balance" as I believe that I am succeeding decently at of late. Rather, the balance I feel I lack is all of the things that seem to occupy my mental and emotional energy all seem to be work related, whether for good or bad. During my personal life times, I feel mostly "meh" about things. Don't get me wrong - I have had some great experiences and fun times with people I care about. There just seems to be something about this time in my life that just feels unexciting. I feel like I have been really intellectually stimulated and I keep myself generally entertained - I have read 14 books so far this year. But I just feel emotionally my life hasn't been overly engaging.

On one hand, this is a huge improvement over last year. True, the world still sucks and there are many things that make me sad and disappointed with life. But personally, my life has really mellowed out. I think part of the mellowing is attitude - in taking care of myself and building better habits, I am learning to take things day by day and look for the positive pieces, instead of focusing on slow results and negative pieces. Plus it helps that external negatives in my daily life have lessened a lot too.

I think part of the problem is I cannot tell if I am putting myself on the path to better things, or just sitting on the sidelines, but in a different way. Or maybe I have a good life that is enjoyable and I just need to remember how to find the quiet joys in it. Or maybe I think too much, and that's what drives me crazy. Or maybe I should crack open the screen play writing book I bought weeks ago and try writing a screen play. Or maybe I just try a new hobby every couple months because I like new things, and maybe I will meet new people. (I do start improv comedy class in May - we'll see how THAT goes!).

So, now that I went off on that tangent, my coworker IM'd me some questions from a book she is reading that you're supposed to ask yourself to gain insights, I guess. The questions she sent were from a chapter on "Find Your Passion." Since one of my passions is writing, and I have been looking for something to blog about, I am going to answer these questions. (Seriously though, I miss the days when I was young, naive, interesting, and had all sorts of silly things to blog about. :^P) I do like this answering questions things though. I wish people asked me more questions in real life. I may be a closed book, but the pages are easy to turn over if you just try. #bookmetaphor - I also use hash tags on not-Twitter things ironically, or to be funny. If I were serious, it's grounds to up me out of my misery.

Question 1 - When do you feel most energized?
When I'm sleeping? Can I have a passion for sleeping? Probably when I am doing something that peaks my intellectual curiosity, such as playing games, solving interesting problems, or talking about interesting subjects with people. Also, when I am excited about something, such as a vacation or an event. I am so excited about the birthday party I am throwing myself, my best and I already went shopping for supplies - 2 months early. I also have a spreadsheet with all the to do items and supplies we need! I have said a lot lately my favorite activities are half interacting with people and half making fancy spreadsheets! Ooh, that's the answer! I feel most energized when using Excel! Hahaha, mostly kidding.

Question 2 - What will you wake up early for?
Disneyland. The only acceptable answer is that I am going to Disneyland. But truthfully, I am not a morning person, so if I wake up early it's more out of obligation to do something or be somewhere, than because I want to. In my dream world, everything exciting and worth doing for me would let me sleep in until 9am. But I do sometimes like to wake up early on the weekends (if I had enough sleep) just so I can feel like a had a longer productive day. If I feel like I haven't had enough alone time during the week, I do like the extra time on the weekends.

Question 3 - What do you stay up late doing?
I stay up late getting my "me time." I find nighttime relaxing. Plus, I am pretty sure I was born a night owl, so staying up late is my jam! Usually I will be reading or playing video games (often while also watching TV). I seem more inclined to stay up later if I didn't have enough alone time during the day, and probably not enough in the future. On occasion I also like staying up late just hanging out with people. Shocker! I know! With the right people, when it's just chill and fun, I don't want the time to end. I may be an introvert, but I really like people. I just tend to like people I already know, and in smaller groups.

Question 4 - What do you never get sick of talking about?
Myers Briggs - duh! I find it so interesting. Or more like, Pinteresting. <-- see what I did there? I have a MBTI Pinterest board full of goodies! Really I think I just really like analyzing people, probably because I am naturally good at it. Also, I never get sick of talking about cute guys. Maybe that's because I don't get to do it enough. It reminds me of the comedian I heard once - if I were hungry I would talk about food.

Question 5 - What do you want to spend a chunk of money on?
I want to go an other big trip. I really want to go to New York. I REALLY want to see Hamilton, but that's crazy expensive! If I were rich I would go. I would still go to New York, maybe some other time, only without buy crazy expensive Hamilton tickets. There are lots of other places I would like to go too - like Hawaii, Germany, London again, many, many other places. It's just hard because I also want to buy a house, whatever my future may bring (*coughs* dying alone *coughs*). I think I need to do that first, and then go on another huge trip. But a not huge trip is totally doable - or a few!

Question 6 - What do your friends come to you for advice on?
My friends come to me for advice on interpersonal issues. Probably again has to do with my skills at analyzing people. Plus I think I am good at breaking a situation down and talking about it honestly, but kindly. So I guess I have good social awareness.

Question 7 - With friends, are you the one who makes plans or the one who goes along with them?
This really depends on the situation. I am the kind of person that always wants there to be a plan, but I don't necessarily want to make it. Gah! the struggle of being indecisive yet scheduled! So, basically I will let others take the reigns and make the plans, but if they can't get their acts together to make a plan, I will make it. Or at least I will use my people skills to trick them into making a plan. Okay, not so much tricks as just asking questions until I force them to acknowledge what they really want, and it gets picked.

Question 8 - What was your favorite subject in school?
I always really like science growing up - until I chose it as a college major. *face palm* What I liked as a kid about science was learning how things worked. Plus, I really liked hands on activities - field trips, experiments, animal dissections! For science! I think the problem was that I liked science for what it offered intellectually and activity wise, but really didn't find a path to a science career that worked with my personality. College science is too much memorization, not enough labs. Except O-chem labs - those can go to hell!!! My only regret about not pursuing science longer is that I never got to dissect a cadaver. In another life, maybe I should have been a surgeon, or a coroner. But seriously, in another life I should have been a therapist. But hey, I cannot wait to do experiments with my (hopefully not fictional) children, where you do cool things with household items.

Question 9 - What was your favorite extracurricular activity?
I occasionally think about how much I miss theater. I did drama in high school and loved it! Again, you would think that me being an introvert would make acting tough, but you'd be wrong! It's actually easier when you don't have to be yourself. And I learned in my teens the rush of making an audience laugh. My best friend and I discussed trying out for the local theater company. But I worry about it since I haven't acted in 15 years, so there are probably a lot more experienced (and better looking) people to fill the roles. But, if say I write my own screen play, maybe I can act in my own TV show!

Question 10 - What extracurricular activity did you try but hate?
That's a tough one. I was kind of a resume packer in high school, so I did a lot of things but nothing I could say I actually hated. Maybe because I just knew what I wouldn't like and didn't try. I have this dislike of trying things I know I will be bad at. You would think I would say sports. I only played sports in junior high, but I had a good enough time. I really enjoyed playing soccer for the youth league in the 8th grade - probably because I was half the girls on the team. I would probably have to say I tried out a couple clubs in undergrad and grad school that I didn't go back to because of the people. Maybe it was a bad sign about being a pre-dental major when I didn't like most of the pre-dental students in the pre-dental club?

Question 11 - What weird hobby did you have as a kid?
Well, I used to make fake food out of mud and dirt in the backyard. Is that weird? I also used to sit in the living room listening to my cd's with headphones one, and I hand wrote lists of all the songs on all my cd's in alphabetical order. So when I bought a new cd, I had to rewrite the entire list. Excel would have blown my mind as a pre-teen/teen! But now I have iTunes, so it does that for me.

Question 12 - What's one passion or interest you think you could never turn into a job?
Music! Music is my most favorite thing in the world. I love listening to music, I love singing, I love talking about music (even if the other person has no idea what I am taking about and doesn't care). I don't think I could ever write music - although maybe song lyrics. I don't think I have the personality either for someone who would perform music. I would not be able to handle touring. I much rather enjoy singing whatever song I want from the comfort of my kitchen, shower, or car. Plus, being a musician these days to me seems as much about the persona of the artist, as the art. And I am not a very showy person. People tend to forget I exist sometimes. And I'm not some hot pop star looking person. And since Adele already exists, there's not really much of a niche for me, especially as I can't sing quite like her and she's very pretty too. I thought about a non-performer music career, but I am not really sure what that would look like with my personal strengths and interests. I think I would rather just enjoy listening to music to help out my day doing the work I have, and occasionally impressing the unexpected bystander when I sing within earshot of someone else.

Well, that was fun! And what did I learn? That I am passionate about being a weirdo - an introverted, people loving, weirdo. But seriously, that was fun. So, job well done!