I am very intentional with language.
I believe that our words are weighted and valuable and we can be so loose with our “Oh I’m doing great” and “life is good” responses, most times that is not the truth of our reality.

So lately, I’ve been trying to give honest answers but saying “I’m okay” throws people off and even without that, I wear my emotions on my face like a bad actor and I am easily read by everyone. I say “I’m okay” when there are a thousand other thoughts in my head and “I’m good” is not the first to come to mind.

Last night, someone asked how I was doing and I told him honestly that I feel misplaced. I feel like I don’t have grounding or a home anywhere or with anyone. I am tight roping and juggling every job I can grab just to pay to live. Why did no one tell us that adulthood is when you are hit with the reality that everything cost money so much so that it’s as if breathing cost money. I don’t feel stable and as exciting as this whole free-lancing, “free” life is, it stresses out the type-A/ left brain in me. I told myself that I wanted to explore this year as a creative and I still mean that but while I’m in the midst of writing, memorizing, performing poetry and working on personal projects, I’m nannying, running various social media spaces for other people, styling clothing at a subscription company and getting ready to work as a barista again. And then I have a few nights out of the week where I am searching for local commercial and plus size modeling auditions. I have no grounding. I find myself overwhelmed with how much I’m passionate about and overwhelmed by the limited amount of time to do it all.

When I was younger my span of dream jobs ranged from wanting to be a teacher, to a famous singer, to actress, then to barista, to psychologist and then to Resident Director, to poet, to speaker, to both, to life coach. I feel like I have octopus reactions to things I am passionate about, if I had eight arms to get my hands in it all, I would. 

Tonight, I was thinking about what to post for the day before my last 30 day challenge post. Every time I enter this space I am convicted with the thought that I want to say something worth saying. I purposely have skipped days because just as much as I believe in showing up, I believe in saying something of value or knowing when the value necessary is silence.

Tonight I was scrolling on Facebook and came across this Ted Talk.

Watch it. Right now. Before you continue reading.

But of course, I’ll give a little summary:

Emilie Wapnick talks about her own personal journey with being passionate about various different topics and professions and feeling the taunting of finding your “one” thing. She refers to herself and others who feel this way as, Multipotentialites. She makes the statement that, “The notion of the narrowly focused life is high romantiscied in our culture. The idea of destiny or one true calling and that you need to figure out what that one thing is and devote your life to it.” But then she makes the point that “multipotentialites” feel burdened by this because they aren’t just passionate about one thing.

Our parents were told they could kind of  be what they wanted as long as they made money, their parents however weren’t really given the “do what you’re passionate about” speeches. They were told work, make money, support yourself and then your families, the end. My parents let me attend an arts school as long as I stayed focused and kept my grades up, they were supportive when I dropped a theater major and focused on psychology, they were equally supportive when I told them I was graduating and didn’t want to go to Grad School. They are my biggest supporters and their patience with my madness has been nothing but grace filled (thanks mom and dad). 

I then of course stalked Emilies website (research, I refer to it as research) and found this little excerpt:

“I want multipotentialites to stop beating themselves up about being unable to find their “one true calling” or fit into a box. I want them to see that their diverse background and insatiable curiosity isn’t some huge failing, but that there’s a very good reason for it…

Not only is your multipotentiality not a curse, but you can actually use it as fuel for your life and income.

Once you stop fighting your scanner nature and embrace it, you’ll find yourself working on projects that are deeply meaningful. You’ll feel a sense of purpose that you never thought possible.“

Was I the only one who thought, WHAT. SO GOOD?!

I want to be her friend. I want her to creatively mentor me and tell me all the things. I want to ask her how she juggles the chaos and where she tells fear to go when it screams louder than her hopes. I want to have coffee tucked between our hands and ask her if the creativity keeps her up at night and how she turns off the magic to actually get some sleep.

In her post, Emilie uses a snippet of a Steve Jobs quote on creatives and the creative process, here’s the full quote:

“Creativity is just connecting things.

When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.”

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“Calling” is a very “religion” focused work, referenced in many scriptures and used by Jesus himself. Ephesians 4 is one of is my favorite verses and refers heavily to calling. But we associate calling with the act of doing or being one certain profession and I don’t think that’s what Jesus was “calling” us to necessarily. He was calling us to love. He was calling us to follow him whole heartedly with all that we are. He has called us to remind people that there is a Kingdom, a heaven that desperately awaits their arrival and we should — we can do that in whatever profession or passion we’ve been given because he’s created us to. 

Emilie ends her talk with the plea to “multipotentialites” that they would,

“Embrace your inner wiring.” 

This world, is a whole new world for creatives.

We are turning this place upside down one blueprint, blank canvas, photograph, poem and creatively interactive company at a time.

However, whenever something new comes charging in, the old is scared and will do everything it can to make sure things stay the same, but they can’t.

I believe every generation regardless of their age is realizing that “the arts” and “creativity” are not topics that we only use in conversations about budget cuts. We are rising a generation who who is wired creatively and is revamping what we view professionalism to be.

I believe that God himself the creator of this universe did, does that very thing, so why wouldn’t we take after the one who Made us?

Check out Emilies’ post Three thing she didn’t get to say in her TedTalk