When They Tell You – “Pick Just One Thing”

Let me ask you a question.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

Let me ask you another one.

How many of you are doing that?

Has anyone ever told you that you have too many ideas, too many dreams, too many or too much of something just so they can tell you that you need to just pick one thing?

One thing and one thing only. One career. Once dream to chase. One thing you are passionate about.

Well, I am here to tell you today that not all of us are programmed like that.

Shocking, I know. 😉 

Creative souls can never pick just one thing. While many of us are writers, painters, sewers, crocheters, knitters, scrapbookers, digital artists, sculptors, musicians …….. and some of them have just one area they focus on for their creative business, I am going to guess, and I would probably be right, that they also dabble in other areas.

 

I am one of those people.

I am a writer.  I haven’t published under my pen name in a long time and I removed my writers blog a long time ago. Aside from writing here, I do still write a lot of poetry.

I had my first piece published when I was about 12 years old and have been writing diligently ever since. Sure, I see some of these poets on Instagram with their amazing words being shared all over Facebook and Pinterest and wonder if I could do that too, followed with, maybe someday I will.

But, I also create jewelry. Since I was a teen I have bought box lots of “junk” jewelry to reuse, repair, re-purpose, recycle. I also buy new pieces and combine the two.

 

Then, I had a moment.

Someone close to me told me that I needed to pick one thing. That I had to pick one career and settle on that. That I needed to get it together with my focus.

I’ve never really had anyone tell me that before. Honestly, I took it pretty hard. We don’t all wake up one morning knowing what we want to be when we grow up, do that thing for the rest of our life, and be perfectly happy with it.

I tried that. I went through a long period of life where I wanted to be a marine biologist. But, there wasn’t really a big calling for that in Oklahoma so it was something I never really pursued. I quickly learned that science was a weakness of mine.

I grew up around real estate / construction, accounting / CPA, and lawyers. I had a feeling I would fall in to one of these fields, but it wasn’t until high school when I realized numbers was my thing and I flew through accounting courses with straight A’s.My teacher became my mentor and I’ll never forget his words of encouragement. Math was my strength.

And even though all my legal classes in high school and college were some of my favorites, I knew that taxes was where it was at for me. And, I did that. For many, many years.

I love taxes, don’t get me wrong. I loved being able to help someone with theirs.

But, I never felt that was my true calling. It’s a job. And, I don’t want to work a ‘job’ the rest of my life.

 

 

I’ve always wanted to be a published writer. And, that means different things to different people. For me, it was so long as my words were available for anyone to read, it didn’t matter how it got there. I’ve been published in publications, anthologies, and self published. I’ve fallen away from writing for a while. Blogging , after 15 years, started to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

I fell away from who I was and what I aspired to me. I am slowly getting back to that.

 

But, I am struggling with that whole “pick one thing.” 

And then, scrolling through Facebook the other day I came across this Ted talk by Emilie Wapnick and it was as if my whole world had opened up again.

 

It didn’t stop there for me. After watching this video, I landed on Amazon where I found her book, How to Be Everything.…..apparently it was my lucky day because the Kindle book was on sale for $1.99 !! With a few credits I had leftover, it cost me a whopping 62 cents. 😉

 

And now… suddenly it makes sense to me. 

I wasn’t meant to pick just one thing.

I was meant to do all the things. Accounting. Writing. Poetry. Blogging. Whatever I want.

I recently launched my latest project, Beard Babe Love. This shop is a long time coming based off of the body positive FB group for beards and the babe who love them.

If you would have told me 20 years ago that my little ‘hobby’ of herbs/teas/oils and the fun-filled certifications I picked up along the way ‘just cause,’ would lead me into a world of beards and babes, I probably would have laughed at you.

But it did. So now I embark on a journey of positive messages, mental health awareness, beard care line, and a babe beauty care line.

I’m just getting started.

 

My final thoughts.

For those of you who feel discouraged because there are so many things you want to do, I highly suggest watching this video.

For those of you with young kids, or heck, any age kids, I highly recommend it as well.

I’m encouraging folks from thinking about that question “what do you want to be when you grow up” and think about the psychological ramifications it could potentially have on some childrens life. Just food for thought.

 

Never let anyone tell you that you have to pick one thing. Never let anyone tell you that you can’t be anything or anyone other than yourself.

 

Feel free to sound off your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.