continually surprised & amazed, pt. 1
adventure, story, & the culmination of my own growth & investment!
A picture taken at work, through one of the doors to the hangar,
which I get a glimpse of when I walk by Ops… what views!
Three days ago, on my drive home from work, I recorded the following blog post as an ad-lib voice memo (the second one this week!).
It turned out to be much longer than I expected, and it has become the largest project I’ve taken on so far on Everyday Magic!
I’ve transcribed and edited it into a four part series (which has taken hours, spread across a few separate work sessions in the last two days!), and each part also includes the attached audio file, raw and unedited, as a sort of podcast-style addition to the series — the origin of the whole project. If you’d like to listen instead of, or along with, reading, here you go!
*note: the audio file came first, but talking and listening is different from reading and writing, so some edits have been made below for clarity and brevity, as well as minor add-on thoughts I had while transcribing. Thus, the audio and textual versions are nearly identical, but not quite.
Hi! I want to reflect and summarize on something awesome, and that is this:
I am SO genuinely, absolutely fucking happy. I’m just delighted. I wrote a blog post about this a couple weeks ago, about how thrilled and grateful I am to be this fucking delighted by my life right now! On a personal level, with my career, my work, my projects… I am thrilled. I’m so happy. I have so much fun, every day, and that just blows my mind.
Of course life will always — still does, will forever — contain its challenges, mundanities, trials. You know, the scuffles and friction and tensions. Hormones, downer days. The difficult things to face. That’s always going to be part of being a human.
I am not euphoric and ecstatic in every moment of every day. It’s not THAT kind of happiness. But I am ecstatic SO much more often right now than I have been in such a long time. Just over all, the grand picture.
You know, even when I’m walking around my work, doing something tedious or mildly annoying, walking around looking for someone, somebody pissed me off, or I’m working on a project that’s irritating or whatever! — even in those moments, when I start to catch myself realizing I’m a little overwhelmed or whatever the case may be — even in those moments, I realize I don’t want to be grumpy about it, and I don’t have anything to complain about! Because even when I catch myself starting to get overwhelmed or think negative thoughts, I just kind of realize it, and I grin — this happened today! — I grinned to myself, and I thought, “It doesn’t even matter! I’m thrilled!”
This is hard to explain, but even with those moments of overwhelm, challenges, human imperfections — that’s just life, that’s just how it is — I am fucking happy to even deal with those precisely because of the bigger picture. Because I love my job.
I told Jake last night, I don’t think I could have better tailor-made, hand-picked, a job to be a perfect fit for me if I had tried. At this time in my life, for what I was looking for, what I want, and what I got, I cannot imagine it being more perfect. I am just so excited. It really blows my mind.
Every new project I take on, I am just amazed at what I get to do everyday and who I get to talk to. What I’m doing right now, recording this, I do this long-form happy ranting to Jake, and I did it to my parents… I just gush! I talk nonstop and blabber on and on and on. I’m like a kid who can’t shut up about something they are over the moon for.
I think about it all the time. I have hopes, dreams, and a vision for the future here. I have plans for how I want to grow and ways I can contribute here, and I love this place. I love the organization. I love the team and the excellence of the people. I love the students and what everyone is striving for and how passionate the environment and the individuals are. It is ASTONISHING. I love meeting people from all over the world. I love the tasks and projects I take on and the responsibilities I have as Student Affairs. It blows my mind.
On a personal note, outside of work, I love my blog. I’m having so much fun writing; even when it’s not fun, I’m sticking with it. I’m proud of it. Again, big picture: there are boring days, insecure days, self-sabotaging days, overly-critical days, or days when I think maybe it’s not good enough. Then there are days when I just don’t feel like doing the work, I don’t think I have time, or it doesn’t really sound appealing.
That’s just human. That’s just the resistance. This is just part of it; it’s part of the deal forever, and the sooner you learn to embrace it, accept it, move past it, and keep going anyway, the sooner you’ll find the success you want and the life you’re looking for. The sooner you will find peace in your life instead of constant drama and agony.
Even with those things — even in off days, bored days, days I don’t feel like writing, days I’m convinced my writing turned out crap — I keep going! And I’m so proud of what I’m making on Everyday Magic. I’m so proud of the blog. I love writing, and I think my writing is getting better. I love how my writing makes me think about and examine my life, cultivate self awareness, and keep learning and growing. I have grown so much through this project, through my blog, through the year, and through my writing. I love it. I have so much fun with it. I think it’s beautiful and looks beautiful, and I love the words and, again, my vision for the future with it. I believe in where I want it to grow and how I want to grow with it.
This comes back to contribution, too. It’s so important to feel like you’re making a contribution in the world and are using your gifts and creativity. To feel like you’re showing up how you want to be showing up, and you’re able to power ON your generosity to make a difference. I think there is some need within every human to make some kind of difference and to be able to share their generosity.
It looks different to everyone, but that piece has been missing for me in the past, and I hate that. It feels like a tiny death within you. Instead, what I’m experiencing right now is one million tiny bursts of life coming awake inside of me, over and over, day in and day out. At work, in my blog, and just in so many ways.
Instead of the tiny death of not getting to contribute, not feeling my passions, creativity, and generosity align — instead of that, I have one million tiny bursts of life. What a trade!
Every time I work on a project I’m proud of, ship something, finish something, post a blog I’m proud of, connect with a student in a meaningful way, do something at work that’s cool, solve a problem really creatively, do something new I’ve never done before, or be handed a new responsibility or set of expectations at work… I’m thrilled! I’m just delighted. That is one million tiny bursts of life, over and over and over and over; it fuels your life! It will fuel your life instead of draining it. It will make you feel more connected, more plugged in, more generous, and like more of a contributor.
I feel more aligned with myself and my values right now, in many ways, in ways that have been missing for a long time.
