J.O.B.

When I was growing up I wanted to be a rollerskating waitress or to play for the Green Bay Packers…yes I said play. Later in college I broke my wrist and elbow rollerskating and my stature didn’t warrant any draft picks, so both of those options were ruled out. I settled on getting a degree in business and hoped for the best.

Marketing is alright, but after being in the workforce for almost a decade I’m still searching for a career that I can be deeply passionate about. Maybe I’ll play guitar and sing at Potbellys? Or I could become the spokesperson for Cleft Awareness and share our message? Both of those options seem to be far off so maybe I should focus on something we’re already doing? It’s no secret that we love projects and the DIY craze is booming. How can I become Nicole Curtis and have my own show on HGTV?

Not only do we have the handy skills to pull it off, but we also have the marketing skills to build it up. Thinking I could take some steps toward my pipe dream I had planned to post an update on all of the projects we’ve done – complete with checklists and budget numbers. I could utilize my best SEO tactics, create a Pinterest board and push as much traffic to this site as possible. We’d make millions of dollars, quit our day jobs and spend the rest of our days making things beautiful.

I know it sounds crazy, but there are lots of people who have done just that. One of my favorite success stories is that of Young House Love. Looking for inspiration I went to visit their blog and the timing was ironic to say the least. I have always been a realist and while I appreciate the motivation of a dream I also believe that no matter what you’re doing, even if it starts as your passion…..it always turns into a J.O.B. Things start out with the best intentions, but as soon as we get a taste of success – we always want more. We push & push and get greedy to a point that our one-time passion turns into something weighed with a heavy responsibility.

In the last two posts on Young House Love, John & Sherry informed their thousands of fans that they have decided to move on. They are burnt out. In just 7 short years, their passion turned into something that was so overwhelming that it caused many aspects of their lives to be out of balance. Needless to say, I didn’t post an update on all of the things we’ve done to our house, I didn’t look to Pinterest and I won’t be optimizing this post for increased web traffic. None of that really matters!

I want to be happy in my job, but I also need to remind myself that I have many other more important outlets for fulfillment outside of my career. Life is too short to continuously search for something more. I am going to slow down and appreciate all of the things right here & now! And..if you’d like to see my house – then please come visit and we’ll sit in our newly renovated kitchen, drink a cup of coffee and talk about all the funny & amazing things our kids are doing.