Swimming in all directions at once

23 Jan 2015

Maybe there’s something in the air but 2015 seems to be the time to move. I’ve been in NY for a little over a year now and it has been a time of healing, transition, and movement. One of the reasons I initially moved here was I wanted a little more hustle in my life. Life is delivering.

There was a quality of life in college that I loved but was able to achieve as a result of the structure inherent in schooling. I was a dual-degree student pursuing a BFA in Sculpture and a BS in Comp-Sci. Two distinct but very similar ways of building things (more on this in another post), I was also in a dance company and climbed 3 times a week. These commitments meant that nearly every waking moment was spent in the pursuit of something. I would jump from studio to rehearsal to lab to the gym and back to studio in the course of a day.

It felt like being in the middle of the ocean with multiple goals all around me and swimming towards all of them at the same time. It was exhausting but I loved it.

Then I graduated and got a job.

I don’t know if it was exhaustion from 4 years of running around, or the impression that as an adult I was supposed to exclusively pursue a career, but I stopped swimming in all directions. I felt as if I had so many potential options, none of which had a clear college-like path, that to swim towards any goal meant I would be farther away from the rest of them. This was paralyzing to my newly graduated and freed self. What if I chose the wrong direction? I couldn’t see a clear path in any direction so how was I to choose?

Around the new year, I decided to start moving again. I had been building to this point, but I finally decided to pursue anything and everything I could at the same time. So far it’s been great. I don’t get to spend as much time as I used to on Facebook, but… not a big loss, and I feel better about it all. We’ll see how it goes, and I imagine I’ll have to be much more efficient (“if you want something to get done, give it to a busy person”), but I’m looking forward to the challenge.