Day 4 of the 30 day blog challenge: Dream Job

I sat and thought about this for awhile and I couldn't pinpoint one particular career path. 

Being that there are SEVERAL things I want to do, I know one thing I do not, and that is work NINE TO FIVE.  I am currently living that life and it is not for me.  I don’t know if I could take another 10 years of living for the weekend.  What kind of life is that?  One that I do not want!  Below is a picture that I look at that keeps me focus on the ultimate goals:

Business Entrepreneur.  

Ever since I was little I knew that I would eventually own some sort of business.  My maternal grandmother owned her own nightclub.  She drilled in me two things: 1) Have my own money and 2) Purchase property.  That has stuck in me.  Now I have no plans to own a club, but in the next 3-5 years I do plan to have some sort of business venture as well as invest in real estate with the plan of using the property as rental income. Do I know what type of business I want to have?  Umm… Sort of, still toying with several ideas. 

Clinical Social Worker/Therapist.  

I feel that I resisted going down this path since the end of my freshman year of college.  Nevertheless I felt that I needed to go through and experience all that I did in order to be a sufficient counselor.  While determining what my purpose in life is and the positive experiences I am having (in counseling), in some way I feel the need to pay it forward.  While pursuing my previous career path, I now know that there was no “passion” for it.  Merely that it “looked” good and I like feeling that I wouldn't be average.  Smh….. I look back on that time and view it as my body having a negative reaction to the path that I was going on.  The side effects of it were depression and weight gain.  Now that I have an idea of what I want and to know that I have a passion for it, everything is clearer now.

Professor. 

My reason for being a professor is somewhat similar to wanting to be a counselor/therapist.  One is that I can do both at the same time and they have flexible hours.  Next I love the idea of being paid to think, write and discuss an area that I have a passion in.  Being that I love anything reading, writing, researching and can tie all that in to social issues is wonderful.  However most importantly, just like with being a therapist, I like the idea of nurturing clients/students and watching them take hold of their confidence and grow with it. I see myself as MelissaHarris Perry without the TV show (have no desire to be on television).

Writer.  

When I was little I use to create my own books and magazines.  I would sit there and “create” articles that interest me and make my mom and grandmother read them.  As I got older I put the dream aside because like everything else, there were no writers around me so I believed that it was something that “other” people do; not some girl from “some town” Louisiana.  Being that I never told anyone of my love of writing and never pursued or worked on it, I told myself that I should give up on it because, “you are no good at it anyway” (see how the mind works and play tricks on you??). Now that I am actively working on it, I would love to one day be an author of fiction as well as nonfiction.  

What about you? Do you have a dream job?

TOMORROW: How important you think education is....

30 day blog challenge DAY 3: The meaning behind your blog name

It's quite simple actually, "Neka" is a apart of my government name and world encompasses everything that happens in my life.  My world consist of family and friends; career and school; spiritual growth; health and fitness; my passions and completing the items on my bucket list.

TOMORROW: Dream Job

30 day blog challenge: DAY TWO

Day 2: Introduction

Since reintroducing myself, I still have been trying to determine how I wanted to proceed with the blog.  Pondering the question, “How much should I share?”

While catching up with blogs, I came across “Black Girl Unlost”. I was reading one her posts, which talked about writing, doing a 30 day blog challenge and therapy.  While reading, I kept thinking, “Did I write that?!”

For the past several months I have been seeing a counselor….

For as long as I can remember, I have been depressed about one thing or another. While I am a great actor (still is) and able to cover it up, as I get older (particular for the past year/year and a half) the depression got worse and became harder to disguise.  For the past couple of years, I pondered on the idea of going to talk to someone because I knew what I was feeling was not normal and it needed to be dealt with before it became uncontrollable.  Therefore after a particular episode that kept me in bed for a couple days unable to even go to work, I decided that I was going down the road of….no longer being able to control it.

Once deciding on seeing someone, I needed to figure out whom that “someone” should be.  I knew right away that they should be female. Next were trying to determine should race play a factor in it. While I know any professional would be able to assist me, I wanted to be able to feel that not only do they empathize with what I am going through, but that they should also truly understand what it is that I am feeling and how hard it is for me to put myself out there to a stranger.  Being a black woman in today’s society, it’s hard to come out to family and friends that something about you are not right.  We fear that people will think we are crazy, we will appear weak or just downright ashamed.

From the first meeting, I knew I made the right decision.  This has been the hardest thing I have ever done. Putting myself out there to a stranger and being vulnerable are two things that I DO NOT DO.  She has put mirror to my face and has shown me that I am the person holding me back and I cannot change until I truly want to.  Just like Black Girl Unlost, I was extremely mean and judgmental to myself and most importantly, I lack self worth.  Realizing this made me understand why I continue to be unhappy in the things I try to do in life which results in failure.

Now that she has found the “tumor” we are in the radiation/chemo stage.  I remember one session where I went to her, cried and said, “I can’t do this, it’s hard, I can’t live like this anymore, just tell me what to do to be better.”  All I got was, “You have to want to change.”. I WAS PISSED. Not the answer I was looking for. LOL….  I wanted a bullet list of actions I need to do in order to feel normal. Nevertheless she was right (duh…she the professional.. LOL). Even though I “wanted” to be better, my actions were showing otherwise.  I unrealistically thought that going to a couple of sessions, I would magically be cured. That is not the case, for the past 30 years, I have been telling myself that I am a “failure/ugly/unworthy”. Therefore I shouldn’t expect to be able to say “you’re awesome” and actually believe it after the first time.  Hell I been faking the funk for so many years that if that was true, then I would have been “cured” a long time ago.

With ALL OF THAT being said, I am still in the beginning stages of my recovery (I guess that is what I will call it).  I am at the process of where I am aware of when negativity creeps into my head and what necessary steps I need to take in order to turn those negative thoughts into positive affirmations.  At the same time I am working on exactly who am I.  These 30 years I have been a representation of what I wanted others to see me as and what I thought I should be.  When asked “Who are you?” I cannot possibly give an answer because I truly do not know. Therefore I am on a quest to figure it out.  

One of my passions is writing, but like everything else in my life, I let my lack of self worth and negative thoughts prevent me from pursuing it.  For the past couple of weeks, I have been doing things that were outside of my comfort zone.  With doing those things, I found the courage to take a bigger step and try to write again.  To be vulnerable and real in my writing and not show a representation of what I want people to see.  I will use my blog to be a platform in developing myself into the person I want to be as well as honing my skills as a writer. 

Just like the blogger who inspired this post, I will participate in a 30 day blog challenge.  Actually since this is the 2^nd, it will be a 29 days.  LOL… I had a hard time pressing the post button yesterday.  Using some of her topics as well as several I found on Google, I think this will make for an interesting month as well as make a nice start on developing my writing skills.

TOMORROW: The meaning behind my blog name.