PERSONAL | Real Talk

I thought I share with you a piece of my mind right now, what I've been going through and 'partly' the reason why I'm not so often blogging anymore. And maybe something people can relate to.

There's one point in your life that you either have already dealt with or probably going to in the (near) future (or maybe not for the lucky ones). I call it the quarter-life-crisis. I'm dealing with it right now. After I graduated from my bachelor's degree, I started thinking about what I wanted to do next. Usually you continue with the master's right after you graduate from you bachelors. At that point I started to question everything. I felt like I'm doing these things because it's what the rules are and what people expect me to do, but not something I know I want.

Something I can use to reach my goals.

But what are my goals? What do I want to achieve in my life? What's my passion?

I've been struggling with this my whole life maybe not as 'deep' as that but it's in the little things when I need to make decisions in my life, not life decisions but small stuff like what to choose from the menu or what shoes to wear. I've always been the hesitater. And it's become so far that I start doubting myself in everything I do. Another thing is that I like to do pretty much everything from sewing and designing clothes to setting up my own foodtruck. Combine both things and you get a hot mess alright. What you get is me telling 'I want to be an illustrator' one day and 'I want to design furniture' the other, without doing something really about it. Not going after it is probably the worst thing I can do, cause you definitely fail if you don't even try. But I still want to find something that I truly feel passionate about.

So how do I extinguish 'liking to do something' to 'following my passion' ? I've been reading this book by Po Bronson called "What should I do with my life?" (yeah how more accurate can it be?), it's a book full of stories about people who have faced the same question. One story stuck with me. Noah has been struggling with finding what he's passionate about. He had ten jobs in 8 years spread over six cities in four different states. He believes that everyone has a unique gift to give the world, so what's his? Where is his passion at? He asked this question to the author and the next thing the author said is something I find inspirational and something I can hold on to.

"Some people are born into their passions. Some never get them and don't care. But I think if you're really struggling to find it, it's almost certainly for a reason. I think the depth of your struggling, is the sign there's something there. Something in you that's trying to get out."

It's okay to not have everything figured out yet, but it's something I need to keep looking for. Try something else, do something new, meet new and interesting people.

So what now? I almost don't dare to say it, because then it's official and something I really have to go after. Okay, here it goes. I'm leaving for Taipei. As in Taiwan, as in a different continent, as in a different culture, as in a different language for at least three months (probably six months). For some it may be nothing really, but for me it's scary as hell. I've never really lived alone and never been far from my family and friends, so doing this is a big step for me and I believe that it will do me good. I'm planning to study Mandarin there beginning from December, but I'll have to be there mid November already. So a lot of stuff to arrange beforehand and I hope everything will go as planned. I'll still be posting here about fashion but I'll include my journey to Taiwan as well.

Have anyone of you struggled with this as well? And how did you deal with it?

x J.

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Food for Thought | Who are we? Where are we going?

Last night I found myself in a place I regularly find myself lately, pondering life.

What am I actually doing? Where am I going? Where do I want to go? It’s something that I regularly beat myself up about and let myself get absorbed in on far too many weekday evenings.

With these sort of problems we always assume that we are alone. Let’s face it we can all be a little self absorbed sometimes and like to think that we’re the only person suffering with one particular problem, and that no-one could possibly understand. Well, my tweet last night proved me wrong. SO many people seem to be feeling the same and from the replies I received sparked the idea for this post.

I’m 24 years old and to date I have pretty much no idea what I want to do with my life. I have a job and I love my blog, but I can’t sit here and say that it’s what I envisaged for my life, although I also have no idea what I envisaged. To write this down brings tears to my eyes and to be honest, makes me feel a little bit ill. It's never nice to admit publicly that maybe you haven't got it all figured out.

But what I did realise last night was that hey, it’s okay to not know exactly what we want right now. Yes, there are some people who discover their future careers and lifestyles when they are picking their A Levels, there are some that pick the exact course they will pursue a job in for the rest of their lives at university but there are also the people who don’t – and there’s nothing wrong with that.

What I’m trying to say is – we will all get there and it doesn’t matter how long it takes us, or how old we are by the time we do. Life isn’t a race or a competition (although it can feel like that sometimes) and our way of doing things are just a little different to others.

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There are people who choose to be big flying career driven individuals and that’s absolutely fantastic, but I know that I will never be that person. Yes I want to succeed in what I do, but I also know that I am not particularly driven by money, or feel there is a definitive job I have to have and nothing else will do. 

What I think is most important is that we don’t focus on what other people are doing and just take time for ourselves. This is the time when it is okay to be a little bit selfish. I don’t have the answers as to how we will get to where we will end up and I think us continuously searching for them isn’t going to get us anywhere either, because in short there are no definitive answers. Each of us will find our way and with a sprinkle of positivity we might just get there a little bit quicker...don’t sweat the small stuff, keep a smile on your face and try and see the bright side of what can seem a shitty situation. Most of the time we are our own worst enemy and if we had a little more faith in ourselves we might be pleasantly surprised at how productive that could be.

Because...we are good people and we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves. The people who are where they want to be in their lives (like my boyfriend Daniel for example) definitely had to go through some pretty rubbish times too to get that point, so bear that in mind when you feel the world is against you.

Our futures are just around the corner and let’s just enjoy our lives until we reach that point :)

I'm always here for anyone who needs a chat and like the good old Ernest Hemingway once said:

"If something is wrong, fix it if you can. 

But train yourself not to worry. Worry never fixes anything".