THE UNKNOWN
I am someone who is currently in the process of transitioning from an employee to an entrepreneur, and I’m starting to understand how much I really don’t know. I don’t know what an LLC is, I don’t know how to “Market” myself, I don’t know what cameras I should be using to stream online, I don’t even know if I have what it takes to be a business owner. I just know that I don’t want to be an employee anymore, and that I guess that is what drives me to plunge into the void every single day. The unknown can be overwhelming, not knowing which way is up, or right, or left, you kinda just feel like your walking on a bridge that is being built while you’re walking on it lol. Which can be exciting at times BUT when there is also the rent to pay, the used car to fix, the cat who is all of a sudden doing this weird twitching and you’re not sure whether or not to take him to the vet, the list goes on in the world of adulting there is always something to attend to. Surprises give off less of a 🥳and more of a 🙃. So how do you manage this? How does one balance between learning an abundance of new skills while maintaining an awareness of all the inherent mundanity of life especially as a creative person. Well as corny as this may come off this insight has really helped me out : You can’t change life, but you can change how you see life. So I know that’s kind of a broad statement so let me give you an example. I'm someone who doesn’t have the best relationship with money or numbers😅they’re icky and gross and my natural instinct is to turn a blind eye to what is coming in and out of my bank account. I noticed after a while I started to develop this fear of managing my own finances, I took the “money isn’t everything” route and frivolously spent my checks on balloons and candy which was fun until I really got curious about my numbers. I opened the app and my heart almost sank , I freaked out and immediately closed it and went on instagram to cope with what I had just seen. In reality I really wasn’t in that bad of a spot but it was my fear of money that turned this molehill into a mountain. I didn’t know what to do so I reluctantly opened up to my friend about what I was dealing with. She basically told me to look directly at my account and do the math, break it down and get a clear picture on exactly what my income and expenses were. After only 10 or 15 minutes I had mapped out where I was and how I could climb out of the tiny hole I had dug myself into. Moral of the story is you can change your perspective on just about everything in order to explore it with a sense of pure curiosity instead of a sense of dread. Over the years I’ve cultivated a little mantra I like to say to myself anytime I feel overwhelmed : Dream Big, Think Small. This has allowed me to map out my path to my dreams in bite-size easily processable pieces to digest which allows me to move forward without feeling stupid or discouraged. Let me drop this in here real quick I just thought of this lol.
This a great video for those of you who want to learn knew skills and ultimately improve the quality of your life. First principles thinking is about using the logical mind’s naturally ability to parse or cut wholistic concepts into simpler ones. So if you want to learn how to produce a song for example, turn your attention to what a song is made of : A baseline, drums, guitar, and singer. Then you can start to understand how each of those elements work individually and finally synthesize those simpler concepts back into the holistic one. It’s changed how I approach everything and as result has made me a better problem solver.
Now what about facing a different kind of unknown? Like you just got laid off, quarter life crisis not knowing your purpose kind of unknown. Well I would suggest going back to the beginning. I recently celebrated a friends birthday which just so happened to be in the town I was raised in, I drove by my old house, my old church, my elementary, middle, and high school and this sense of joy and nostalgia rushed over me. All these fond memories flooded back into me because that was the age where you could be the most unfiltered joyful version of yourself. So go back, talk to your parents about how you were when you were little, ask them for scrapbooks or even go into your camera roll to remember when you were truly joyful because the path of joy is also the path of purpose. So I hope this helped anyone who is dealing with the unknown in suboptimal ways lol, stay blessed and Keep your I open.
