Today I got myself the Wendy’s cake frosty sundae, and it was so good! I don’t often eat sweets, but I figured I deserved it. This week has been quite frigid, with ice encasing my truck one morning. The entire windshield and door was covered in ice, with me having to yank that door hard to open it. Though mentally I love this weather, my body is not immune to the chill. I don’t know if anyone out there can relate, but when it gets very cold my body tends to spasm; more specifically my shoulders. It should warm up a little by the weekend, but these final two days of the week will still be cold. Work has been okay, and today was a fun day attending lectures and events. In terms of progress, it’s the same as before little by little. I’m just trying to make it to this weekend.
I plan on visiting home Friday night, and I can’t wait to have some home-cooked meals. I’ll also get to see my little nephews, who I missed a lot and their silliness. I’m not sure if I’ll see my friends, though, because I might have to take care of family things but hopefully I can. It feels like lately I just haven’t been so stressed or worried about things, and just simply embracing it all in stride. The mentality of just enjoying the moments, and taking it day by day helps. Today was one of those days where I enjoyed many moments. I saw a speaker who discussed many interesting things, in regards to student athletes. I emailed him later in the day with the hope of establishing a contact and possibly networking with him about that. Besides traveling, if I could incorporate sports into whatever I do I would love that.
I mentioned lectures, and one of them was about mental health. Basically, it discussed how there was a shortage of therapists (mainly in the university setting) and finding ways to adjust to that. It made me think large-scale and with many careers in mind. How the disparity of jobs is so interesting to think, and why we follow certain paths. We can’t predict the future, and the popular careers of today (like engineers) can quickly become out of style 5-10 years from now. Technology is certainly going to take many jobs away from us, yet we always ignored the warning signs. By that I mean those movies of a dystopian future where it’s very futuristic and robots walk among us. We used to laugh and think it’ll never happen, or it’s a long long way from now, but we’re actually in the midst of it. From the days of AOL internet, to the dawn of the iPhone, to now machines building machines. One day the Terminator just might appear in our time.
I joke, but the reality is our discoveries not only help but can also hurt us; leaving many unemployed or looking elsewhere. But one thing that seems safe are those that incorporate people skills; like mental health. But not everyone wants to do that, maybe they want to work with numbers. Not everyone wants to go to the smaller regions, and be the original creators of a boomtown. Many want to go to the already over-populated cities; ironically I live in one of those cities. While I mentioned shortages in certain areas, we also deal with oversaturation. The most common are lawyers, nurses, and now those in tech. Meanwhile, there’s actually a shortage of doctors around the world, and I think teachers as well. Maybe one day, technology will become those doctors or maybe too many people will become engineers or go into tech that there’s no more good jobs out there. The last thing we want is to work someplace that we don’t want to be.
And of course, sometimes we’ll have to do things we might not enjoy for a bit until we get where we want to be. I had to work with accounting for some time, and I did not fully enjoy all the numbers. But if you want to do what you want to do, or be where you want to be, you’ll have to do what not many people choose to do; go off the beaten path. Instead of going someplace common like LA, why not someplace like Boise? Rather than going into tech like everyone else, why not pursue that culinary dream you thought about? Many factors can affect us like security, family, financial reward and such. . . but as far as we know we have one chance at life. Don’t push your dream aside, because someone else will take your spot with it. Don’t push those people close to you who are trying to be supportive, because they are one in a million and can be hard to find. Don’t be afraid to use resources around you. And most importantly, don’t give up. Sometimes we overthink things and it can make us cry, and that’s okay. Acknowledging it, learning to let go, and embracing what is and saying it’s okay can help us move forward in stride. Who knows what the future has in store, whether it’s too many or too few in our field, do what YOU want to do (not what’s popular) and go with all your heart. . .
Novatourist 