Find What You Love

I'm not sure if The Onion is actually a credible news source.  Some days I see an article from them and it's solid.  Other days its about as factual as Fox News.

But this article got my attention.  And since it is all opinion and not fact based, there's no real question over its credibility, just - does it apply to you and your life.

And I'd say for a lot of people my age, both in Korea and back home, this does apply.

Give it a read and have a think.  

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Find The Thing You're Most Passionate About, Then Do It On Nights And Weekends For The Rest Of Your Life

(taken (and adapted) from The Onion, article by David Ferguson)

I have always been a big proponent of following your heart and doing exactly what you want to do. It sounds so simple, right? But there are people who spend years - decades, even - trying to find a true sense of purpose for themselves. My advice? Just find the thing you enjoy doing more than anything else, your one true passion, and do it for the rest of your life on nights and weekends when you're exhausted and cranky and just want to go to bed.

It could be anything - music, writing, drawing, acting, teaching - it really doesn't matter. All that matter is that once you know what you want to do, you dive in a full 10 percent and spend the other 90 torturing yourself because you know damn well that it's far too late to make a drastic career change, and that you're stuck on this mind-numbing path for the rest of your life.

Is there any other way to live?

I can’t stress this enough: Do what you love…in between work commitments, and family commitments, and commitments that tend to pop up and take immediate precedence over doing the thing you love. Because the bottom line is that life is short, and you owe it to yourself to spend the majority of it giving yourself wholly and completely to something you absolutely hate, and 20 minutes here and there doing what you feel you were put on this earth to do.

Before you get started, though, you need to find the one interest or activity that truly fulfills you in ways nothing else can. Then, really immerse yourself in it for a few fleeting moments after an exhausting 10-hour day at a desk job and an excruciating 65-minute commute home. During nights when all you really want to do is lie down and shut your eyes for a few precious hours before you have to drag yourself out of bed for work the next morning, or on weekends when your friends want to hang out and you’re dying to just lie on your couch and watch TV because you’re too fatigued to even think straight—these are the times when you need to do what you enjoy most in life.

Because when you get right down to it, everyone has dreams, and you deserve the chance—hell, you owe it to yourself—to pursue those dreams when you only have enough energy to change out of your work clothes and make yourself a half-assed dinner before passing out.

Say, for example, that your passion is painting. Well, what are you waiting for? Get out there and buy a canvas and some painting supplies! Go sign up for art classes! And when you get so overwhelmed with your job and your personal life that you barely have enough time to see your girlfriend or boyfriend or husband or wife, let alone do anything else, go ahead and skip classes for a few weeks. Then let those paint brushes sit in your room untouched for six months because a major work project came up and you had a bunch of weddings to go to and your kid got sick and money is tighter than you thought it would be and you have to work overtime. And then finally pick those brushes back up again only to realize you’re so rusty that you begin to question whether this was all a giant waste of time, whether you even want to paint anymore, and whether this was just some sort of immature little fantasy you had as a kid and that maybe it’s finally time to grow the fuck up, let painting go, and join the real world because, let’s face it, not everyone gets to live out their dreams.

Not only does that sound fulfilling, but it also sounds pretty fun.

Really, the biggest obstacle to overcome here—aside from every single obligation you have to your friends, family, job, and financial future—is you. And I’ll tell you this much: You don’t want to wake up in 10 years and think to yourself, “What if I had just gone after my dreams during those brief 30-minute lunch breaks when I was younger?” Because even if it doesn’t work out, don’t you owe it to yourself to look in the mirror and confidently say, “You know what, I gave it my best half-hearted shot”?

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Did you get it?  

Did you have to read it twice?!  

I did.  

I had to let my brain catch-ups from all the 'what?!'s it was saying before it could properly place all the sarcasm.  

The sarcasm that's at the truth of a lot of our lives that we are letting go by while we work to maintain a life we don't really like so that we can "live".  

When what we should be doing is finding what we love, so that what we do for work is what we love and it makes everyday that much better!

Little Voices

My little monsters have come back to me and it has been so wonderful having my classroom full of students and to be teaching again.

A few years ago, who'd have thought I'd be saying that?! 

I used to cringe at the idea of being a teacher.  My parents' friends or other various adults I would have contact with, would all ask me - did I want to be a teacher like my parents?*  I used to answer with such a hard and fast 'NO' that I'd nearly give myself wipe lash.

And now… that I've been out of school for almost 5 years; what do I find myself saying I want to be?!

A freaking teacher!

I couldn't have figured that out while I was in university and saved thousands on the right degree.**

No… hindsight is a real kick in the ass.

But even with saying that, I don't regret what I've done, jobs and wanderings I had or where I am now.

Because my job is great! 

Just the other day, I got to be Fraulein Meagan with my younger students.  It was 'The Sound of Music' in my classroom as their little voices sang out to songs that went along with our lessons.

Here's a little look at my Korean Von Trapps…

* my mom was a middle school teacher for many years and my dad taught high school English

** I have a degree in Zoology, which (when I leave Korea) I want to use to teach high school science.

Travel Young

A friend had shared the link for this article on Facebook a few weeks back.  I couldn't not share it - since it's so true.

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(taken (and adapted) from Converge magazine, article by Jeff Goins)

… Our trip was finished. It was time to go home.

But we were changed.

As I sit... I’m left wondering why I travel at all. The other night, I was reminded why I do it — why I believe this discipline of travel is worth all the hassle.

After a day of work, one of the young women brought up a question.

“Do you think I should go to graduate school or move to Africa?”

I don’t think she was talking to me. In fact, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t. But that didn’t stop me from offering my opinion.

I told her to travel. Hands down. No excuses. Just go.

She sighed, nodding. “Yeah, but…”

I had heard this excuse before, and I didn’t buy it. I knew the “yeah-but” intimately. I had uttered it many times before. The words seem innocuous enough, but are actually quite fatal.

This phrase is lethal. It makes it sound like we have the best of intentions, when really we are just too scared to do what we should. It allows us to be cowards while sounding noble.

Most people I know who waited to travel the world never did it. Conversely, plenty of people who waited for grad school or a steady job still did those things after they traveled.

It reminded me of Dr. Eisenhautz... a German professor at my college. [He said t]he most profound thing I had heard in my life.

“The habits you form here will be with you for the rest of your life.”

It’s true — the habits you form early in life will, most likely, be with you for the rest of your existence.

“We are what we repeatedly do,” Aristotle once said. [L]ife is a result of intentional habits. So I decided to do the things that were most important to me first, not last.

After graduating college, I joined a band and traveled across North America for nine months...

As part of our low-cost travel budget, we usually stayed in people’s homes. Over dinner or in conversation later in the evening, it would almost always come up — the statement I dreaded... — some well-intentioned adult would say, “It’s great that you’re doing this … while you’re still young.”

Ouch. Those last words — while you’re still young — stung like a squirt of lemon juice in the eye. They reeked of vicarious longing and mid-life regret. I hated hearing that phrase.

I wanted to shout back,

“No, this is NOT great while I’m still young! It’s great for the rest of my life! You don’t understand. This is not just a thing I’m doing to kill time. This is my calling! My life! I don’t want what you have. I will always be an adventurer.”

In a year, I will turn thirty. Now I realize how wrong I was. Regardless of the intent of those words, there was wisdom in them.

As we get older, life can just sort of happen to us. Whatever we end up doing, we often end up with more responsibilities, more burdens, more obligations. This is not always bad. In fact, in many cases it is really good. 

Youth is a time of total empowerment. You get to do what you want. As you mature and gain new responsibilities, you have to be very intentional about making sure you don’t lose sight of what’s important. The best way to do that is to make investments in your life so that you can have an effect on who you are in your later years.

I did this by traveling. Not for the sake of being a tourist, but to discover the beauty of life — to remember that I am not complete.

While you’re young, you should travel. You should take the time to see the world and taste the fullness of life. Spend an afternoon sitting in front of the Michelangelo. Walk the streets of Paris. Climb Kilimanjaro. Hike the Appalachian trail. See the Great Wall of China. Get your heart broken by the “killing fields” of Cambodia. Swim through the Great Barrier Reef. 

These are the moments that define the rest of your life; they’re the experiences that stick with you forever.

Traveling will change you like little else can. It will put you in places that will force you to care for issues that are bigger than you. You will begin to understand that the world is both very large and very small. You will have a newfound respect for pain and suffering.

While you’re still young, get cultured. Get to know the world and the magnificent people that fill it. The world is a stunning place, full of outstanding works of art. See it.

You won’t always be young. And life won’t always be just about you. So travel, young person. Experience the world for all it’s worth. Become a person of culture, adventure, and compassion. While you still can.

Do not squander this time. You will never have it again. You have a crucial opportunity to invest in the next season of your life now. Whatever you sow, you will eventually reap. The habits you form in this season will stick with you for the rest of your life. So choose those habits wisely.

And if you’re not as young as you’d like (few of us are), travel anyway. It may not be easy or practical, but it’s worth it. Traveling allows you to feel more connected to your fellow human beings in a deep and lasting way, like little else can. In other words, it makes you more human.

That’s what it did for me, anyway.

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I'm not yet 30.  

I'm not sure if I'll ever think you're too old for travel.  

But I'm thankful I'm traveling now.  

I'm thankful for all the places I've been.  All I've seen and learned.  For if there's only one thing I know for certain - 

it's that traveling is my biggest joy.

Elephant in the Room

I'm trying to think of how to start this post, and I can't come up with a sentences that doesn't start with "I guess…".

But that's just it.  I can only guess.  I can't fathom it.  I don't know how it works.  I don't get it.

North and South Korea.  

Their ever intwined, f#@$ed up relationship.

I guess…

It would be like having a twin.  

That hates you.  

But wishes they were you.  

And is always coming in second to you.  

Well not really second...

More like last… 

in the world. jk 

That is kind of how I (unfairly, unjustly, inaccurately, maybe a bit discriminatorily) see the relationship between my "home" country and its twin.


But what is not a guess, what is fact - and slightly unnerving - is that no one talks about it!  The Koreans could not be bothered that their uglier, unhappy, seething twin is sitting close by, ready to throw down the gloves, get out the guns and go to battle.

Or North Korea would like the Western world to think.

And they do!  The Western world is on alert at the threats that Kim Jong-un is making, but Koreans could give a shit.

They will not. even. talk. about. it!

Maybe it's a pride issue.  Or it's embarrassing.  Or any one of a thousand possible cultural issues that - again - I can't begin to guess.

But the thing that gets me - the elephant that's not only in the room; but running round, sounding its trumpet - is the fact that I live here too!

Have you forgotten Korea?!

My intrigue into what is going on with your hotheaded twin, isn't simple some tasteless, sapless question (well, not entirely).  It's because I live here too!

But since I'm not getting any answers, and the Koreans aren't worried, I guess I'll just have to relax until they start to show signs of alarm.

Because when that happens! that's when I know it's time to

and

What Another Year Looks Like

Here's a look at what life was like my second year in Korea.

*here's a look at my first year 

Where You Been?

I took a little time off.  

Nearly a month.  

Why?

Why do I ever stray from my blog?!

Ooohhhh right - because I just get lazy and find the everyday happenings of my life mundane and routine and I forget that I'm living a life that most others (excluding the few thousand expats that are in Korea with me) are not.

So I just stop sharing.

But without being too harsh on myself - February wasn't too eventful.  There was a lot of sitting around.  Literally.  

I deskwarmed for the entire month. >.<

I wasn't supposed to, I was supposed to teach for a bit of it.  But as things work in Korea - plans changed…

 and I sat.

In my personal life there were a lot of dinners with friends, another round of goodbyes as contracts ended and friends left , visitors from the States, a trip to Seoul in which we did nothing cultural (tourist fail), visa renewal and many visits to Misorae.

Good times.  

Even the goodbyes.  

Because despite what Peter Pan said*, I won't forget them - I know they're just off on new adventures!

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*“Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.” 

― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan