Jobs, hobbies and life

I'v spent all day on photoshop, working towards improving my skill slowly but surely. Some the work I have been doing has even been project work or otherwise university work, but you know what? I have loved every minute I have sat in front of this screen playing with layers and colours. And I think that makes a big difference in what you end up doing with you life, it makes you happier and it makes you more productive. Sure I could have gone with my original plan of coding and general IT stuff (I feel like I understand computers and coding quite easily), but was that really what I wanted?

Today's Experiment 1: Colour mixing

So as you might have guessed from the previous paragraph originally I was intending to become an IT consultant. I have plenty of experience throughout my childhood building computers and fixing networks, and I have no trouble writing or thinking in code (binary is soooo cool). But what I discovered when I tried to study it is I had force myself to learn. Learning the languages was boring, the lectures were boring, and quite frankly the other people in the course weren't like me. So I took this (thankfully) as a sign and I stopped trying to learn that particular course

Next was my go at multimedia, the stories of the places I went to try and learn are stories for another time but it's enough to say eventually I ended up at QANTM where I currently learn =) I could tell that's where I was meant to be pretty easily. See there were simple signs such as:

1. Not falling asleep in class.

2. Actually enjoying project and class work.

3. Being among like minded people.

Today's Experiment 2: Artificial light beams

Some of my early work looks like absolute crap, and for good reasons. Originally, like all of us bar the lucky some that are born with talent in the field they love, I was bad at what I wanted to do. It was hard to keep working on the visual side of designs, some classes when we were free to create say a web page mockup I would just sit there with my head in hands feeling like I'd never be good at this. Sure I could code a web page, code a flash website or place layers on top of each other willy nilly but when it came down to it I wasn't very good with anything visual. Now I'm not saying I am but a couple of months ago I started to know enough tricks and tips to actually pull off what I wanted to make. And you know what? I'm spending more time doing the work that I love, I'm getting closer and closer to what I want to be. And I love it.

Have you got a hobby you enjoy doing? Would you like to be better or even make it a full time job? Then work on it and maybe one day it won't be a hobby, maybe one day it can be your life.

Abstract Identity Board

And this leads me to the main point that this post has to make. Don't spend your life focusing your effort into things you don't enjoy doing. If your in a dead end job and you don't like it do something about it. I'm not saying quit the job and start learning to play the guitar but at least start learning to play the guitar. You may not be a guitar legend as soon as you begin, but if your heart is in it and it truly is what you want to do you will get better. If you don't move towards your goal you will never achieve it, and you will never be happy doing what you don't like. It may be hard at first but hell, life is, get used to it. Things are much more rewarding when you work hard to achieve them anyway.

- Fae