An article about how I traced back my passions
Got lost
Remember when my first blog post on Medium, UI/ UX Designer — A trendy career is coming to an end? became trendy that every day I got more than a hundred views, there were many questions about how I found my passion, and many people were saying that they were looking forward to reading my article about that.
I was so focused on my work that I hadn’t really had time to write about that as I promised. Today just suddenly I remember since these days I started to apply those ways again to find ways back to my previous life before this period where I kind of lost myself because of studying and working too much. I never called myself a workaholic but the past period really made me have to call myself like that. I have never known how it is to be a workaholic, maybe they just loved working so much? – I asked myself before. However, what I faced made me realize that being a workaholic really can make you get lost, or at least it was to me.
I lost who I was. I lost great hobbies that I found again while I traced back my history to know my real passions. I lost the lifestyle that I really loved. I lost the life balance that helped me a lot to be a better person. Because I am also not perfect, you know.
Unbalanced life caused me anxiety and not being present for quite a time. I have been trying to get back to my old life for months but it was not really. Finally, recently I remember how I found myself and my passion again, which led me to drop off my old career and change to another totally different field as I wrote in my old trendy post which got 105k views on Medium.
Then, I started to apply it again to see if I could find myself and my meaningful life again.
and get back
The previous blog post carried something I put into my practice. One of them was:
“not to want anything”
Wanting to stay in Finland was really one of my things when I moved to Finland for study and job seeking. I knew before that the desire to have something was really not good for our mental health, but I did not really think that much about the “want to stay in Finland” because there have been also many people going abroad and trying their best to stay there, it was not that they want to be rich or a material life but turned out, “want to stay” is also a “want”.
Therefore, I started to drop that “want” out of me. I work the best as I can to contribute to my workplace, but I remind myself that it is not for the “want” to stay in Finland, it is just for my passion and for my IKIGAI life meaning, for being worth the trust of people who trusted in me to welcome me to the team.
Do again what I loved when I was a kid, which brought me peaceful and happy vibes during my childhood
So I remembered I was always into singing, dancing, and drawing. Every day besides school time, I was reading manga and drawing what I loved from the manga in my little room.
I was also singing every day whenever I had free time, and as you know, a kid had so much free time 😀 so I was always sitting at my computer and singing along to the lyrics on the screen. Back in the previous time when there was no popular computer usage yet (I am proud to be a millennial xo), I was always singing along to the songs I listened to until I remembered all the lyrics, or I simply wrote down those lyrics into my lovely notebook and opened to sing.
I also always wanted to join dancing teams at the church or at the schools I went to, I was even a team leader when I was just at secondary school where I taught my classmates in the team to dance by what I learned from my dancing activities at church and from music videos.
Another special thing was I was really into the toy furniture arrangement with which I can set up and organize any kind of rooms I love with beautiful interiors. Now I do it everyday with my new apartment. I got so excited when arrange furnitures for my apartment, I could keep doing it everyday even after an exhausted working day. It really makes me sparkle and I never felt tired or got bored about it. I did it also when I traced back my passion back then, my room I organized got an article written by a small local online news but it was really a lovely memory 🙂 So, one of my greatest hobbies: from loving to organize toy furniture when I was a kid to real furniture when I am an adult :))
We actually know what we wanted when we were a kid
When I wrote down those memories, I was like just suddenly remember more and more details that I totally forgot.
Those are really my good old days. Those peaceful moments and feelings when I was lying in my room in the middle of the afternoon and drawing my favorite character from a manga, or diving into my favorite songs and dancing moves on music videos that made me forget about the time.
Aren’t those our real pure passions and happiness?
But why the more we grow up, the less we feel like we know about ourselves?
I asked myself:
Why we had so many slow peaceful moments back then even though we did not have a great life condition like when we were adults (when we got jobs and money to spend on our own for things we like instead of asking for mom and dad back then)?
And why even if we have a good job and money, we still keep running in the wild, and we forget to enjoy our present moments as I was facing?
Of course, as a kid, we don’t have to work 7-8 hours a day, but isn’t that singing a couple of songs just takes around 10- 20 minutes? Isn’t that drawing something small might just take around even 10 minutes? Learning to dance might just take 30 minutes a day, so why we don’t do it? Did we forget to do it? Or we are too busy running to the future? Or we are too anxious while got stuck in unhappy things yesterday?
So, I am questioning why we are so always in a hurry with things around but those hobbies that are like vitamins for our soul to keep our souls growing seeds and flowers that we could not even spend 1 hour a day for some of them?
Those are similar questions that I asked myself when I tried to find back my real passion in life, and they actually helped my life to navigate to another better direction
So I started again: take my vitamins
I started to do freestyle dancing whenever I can 😀 looks stupid but is so fun 😀
I started singing anytime I could, made me feel so relieved and comfortable.
I started to take care of my blog, my writing, and my journals again, made me feel so peaceful and present.
I started to read again what could be vitamins for my soul and my thoughts, what could bloom my mind.
I started to take things slowly, totally “be” my mind and my body with my beloved one, and be aware of my emotions more.
I started to pay attention to my breaths frequently as before.
Those are my personal projects for now, to cultivate the seeds and vitamins for my soul and my mind, which will bring me the power to live happily in harmony with things I love.
…and don’t forget to keep reminding about that
Now I really know that no matter how many books we read, how many great things we got to know, how many lucky good things we are having. If we don’t keep reminding ourselves about it, if we keep running with things in life, if we give up practicing being present and appreciating every little thing, we will get lost someday, and have to start to find the way back again.
Therefore, I am finding my ways again, I am singing my favorite old songs I have loved while writing this blog post, and I know I am feeling happier and happier everytime. I keep reminding myself to nurture my soul with good vitamins and beautiful thoughts everyday so they will make me bloom.
Every person has different kinds of vitamins that your soul needs, so:
Be a little slower
Don’t run with the crowd
Take your own pace
And you’ll find yourself again.
Sisi
26.07.2024
Links in this blog post:
Article about my career changing that got trendy within 3 months on Medium: https://medium.com/@sylvievu/ui-ux-designer-a-trendy-career-is-coming-to-an-end-7d2bdf568ebe
Article about my room in Vietnam: https://afamily.vn/cai-tao-can-phong-17m-duoc-xay-da-20-nam-thanh-khong-gian-da-nang-tien-ich-nho-tan-dung-noi-that-quan-ca-phe-cu-o-sai-gon-20200401155559879.chn
