Inspired - Again - to Make Changes

As some portion of my readers know, I took a little break from blogging for a few days.  Partially because I got pretty busy with the holiday rush of errands, family, parties, cooking, gift-wrapping, and eggnog-sipping.  But the primary reason I took a wee sojourn was because of the essay series I was pursuing - a research analyzing of how entitled American society has become.

It was inspired by a number of things, ranging from a few family events to the consistent garbage on my Facebook feed that spiraled the focus of a horrible tragedy taking 27 lives out of control. Instead of citizens investing their time, energy, and voices in the whole, the community, our nation, and it's safety, people were making it about them personally.  This angers me, and in the spirit of the holidays, I couldn't bear to be so weighted down by such negative energy, particularly after it was brought to my attention that so many citizens have even made the holiday time into a negative experience by being prejudiced about their well wishes.

Before I get on my soap box again I should stop myself.

I've spent this morning catching up on blogs and social media that I took a break from for the past week, and, admittedly, avoiding the next chapter in the essay series.  I scrolled into posts my favorite photography blogger, Scott Bourne with Photofocus.com, wrote last August.  If you're an artist, or even someone who is just aspiring to big, competitively heavy dreams, you should read it.  Because it has helped me refocus my energies, and cancel this essay series.

In the last two years, I've had to put a lot at stake for my career.  I've made decisions to end employment that provided a consistent income because it was challenging my dreams, my sanity, and sucking my life dry of quality time with my Nikon, walk away from long-term friendships because it was tossing heavy burdens toward my self-worth, I've even broken up with a guy for calling my career "an entertaining hobby."  And, I'm ashamed to say after all those efforts, I let a series of negative events pull me away from my determined optimism.

Again, following this post, I'm going to take a short sabbatical (wow, who knew it was spelled that way?), step off of my soap box, away from my own hypocrisy (another tricky word), and remind myself what I'm doing here.  In a tough economy, pursuing a tough profession, I have got to stay positive, continue my journey to becoming a better, more productive friend, girlfriend, daughter, sister, cousin, niece, citizen, photographer, and human being altogether.

The first of the year marks the first of a lot of big life-changing events for me, and I'm going to spend the next seven days preparing for them.  I'll let you know as they come to fruition - or don't, but I can tell you that I'm still as stubbornly persistent as ever in following my heart, working hard to get to where I want to go, and doing what I can to be a loving, caring person along the way.  No person or event is going to keep me from that.

This is, after all, My Shot.




Sources:
Photofocus post from 8.26.12 by Scott Bourne - How to Improve Your Photography Literally Overnight - Really