Kat Eye Studio

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Two Things at Once

ReflectionDo you ever feel like you are trying to be two things at once? I certainly do. I am an engineer. A photographer. A mother. A wife. A friend. A teacher. A blogger. A corporate worker. A small business owner. Shall I list them all? No wonder I needed to focus on balance this last month.

The focus on balance led me to this book: One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for Work/Life Success by Marci Alboher. As I finished it over the weekend I had to sit for a while and think about what I took away from the book. It had many strategies for managing a “slash” life like mine. Filled with stories of people who have dual careers such as computer programmer/theater director and lawyer/minister, it gave real life examples of people who have made multiple careers work. Marci covered the difficulties and pitfalls, but the rewards too. It allows a new answer to the age-old question, “What do you do?” It validated that I am not alone on this crazy path.

In fact, it’s led to me to reflect that for my entire adult life I’ve been some form of this more-than-one-thing-at-a-time path. After graduating with my bachelors in electrical engineering, I worked full time as I pursued my master’s degree in the evenings. After gaining that degree and a new job, I relocated to Oregon and started a hobby of scrapbooking. (I pursued scrapbooking with a passion equal to a job, completing book after book.) The scrapbooking led me to become a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator soon after my son was born. If that’s not crazy I don’t know what is: Working at my engineering job, new mom, oh, and let’s do this side business too! To be fair, I didn’t really pursue Stampin’ Up! as a business, but when I started to teach stamping and scrapbooking, I realized how much I loved teaching. I was hooked. It got to the point I loved the teaching more than the stamping, I only stopped that to move to Italy. Is it any wonder that I found something else to fill the void? Travel, photography, blogging – all led to this new passion and desire to teach in a new realm.

The funny part: It’s starting to all make sense. I used to feel like someday I would have to choose between “being” the engineer or the photographer, but now, I don’t feel that way so much. I will probably always default to pursuing multiple things at once. I think that is who I am. It’s just how my energy flows. So it’s no longer about choosing one answer to the “what do you do” question for me, it’s about balancing the different parts to a cohesive, satisfying and not-too-overwhelming whole. It’s about letting myself embrace the idea of the “slash,” that it’s ok to be more than one thing at a time. That I am more than one thing, and I always will be. We all are.

In my “About” page you’ll see the fruits of all of this contemplation – I identified myself as a Photographer/Teacher/Engineer/Mother. I could add about five more slashes on there, but those get to the heart of who I am right now.

How would you answer the question, “What do you do?”

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Back to Balance

Under the Bridge, Chicago, Illinois

Under the Bridge, Chicago, Illinois

For the last half of October, I’ve been focusing on balance in my life. It’s been an interesting period, because for each idea I had about achieving and maintaining balance, there was an asterisk attached to it. It was as if there was a little footnote added in my brain:

*After the website is launched.

Now that the website has been launched, there is this gap in my time. You know that gap, the one that happens after a big project? Where suddenly you have time on your hands and no big overriding goal to fill it? That gap is a critical time. It sets the stage for what is to come. Do you fill it with lots of little things or one new big goal? Normally, I would fill it with one big new goal, or maybe lots of little goals, but for now it’s time to put my plans for balance into practice.

Those plans include planned time for my own creativity and fun. Time for the activities that give me energy. It’s too easy for me to let my project “to do” list take over, which drains my energy. If there are items on the “to do” list, I feel like I should do those first instead of the fun. Before I know it, these wonderful mornings I created by going part time are used up. I know I’m not alone in this kind of work ethic. It’s time for me to change up the dynamic, and I’ll do that by setting some rules about my time. Setting a schedule for creative fun and for the “to do” list. It’s not spontaneous or random, and, damn, if it isn’t uncomfortable! But, it will get me back to that creative play that is so important to maintaining the rest of my creative spiral.

Along with that, I’ll be working to avoid overcommitting, the bane of people with too many ideas. I realized that much of my lack of balance came from commitments I made, mostly to myself, way back into April and May. Yikes! Six months later… here I am recuperating. Can I commit a little less into the future, and leave space for new and interesting things to develop? You bet.

For me, November is going to be a month of focusing on my own creativity and what gives me energy. Photography, blogging, teaching my classes… all of these give me energy. They are part of my core creative processes, so they stay.  Learning gives me energy, so studying Lightroom is on the schedule. Painting is just plain fun, so I need to make time for it. Other than that, I look forward to going with the flow.

It’s time to get back to balance, and see what develops. Want to join me? What things can you do to get back to balance into your life?

PS – Visit me over at Mortal Muses today, musing on some fantastic light.

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At the Threshold of Balance

It’s no secret that over the last two weeks, since returning home from Chicago, I’ve been thinking about balance. I started out by diving into a plan of how to achieve it, but realized that there is a bigger question that has to be answered: What does balance mean to me anyway? I can’t develop a plan for balance if I don’t have a target of what balance looks like for my life.

For me, balance does not mean focusing on any one thing to the exclusion of others. My life is a dance, moving from side to side of the dance floor. Each side has something different to offer, something different it needs. It encompasses so much more than one “thing.” I don’t think there is one word that can capture all of this: Photographer/Teacher/Writer/Engineer/Mother/Wife/Friend. There is no all or nothing.

In my photography, balance starts with deciding what is in and out of the frame before I take the picture. But it doesn’t stop there, it continues as I play around with different compositions and views. I need to remember I’m doing the same in life – experimenting and playing with the elements that make up my life to create a balanced whole. There is no realistic expectation that says we will get it all right and perfect on the first try.  There is no realistic expectation that we will get it all right and perfect, ever. Maybe perfection happens for a brief moment in time, but life is subject to change.

I’m at the threshold of balance right now. Deciding what is in and out of the frame of life. From there I’ll experiment with the details and see how to make things fit in a balanced way. It feels much simpler and freer to think of it as an experiment, where I’m testing to see the outcome, than as a commitment where I “fail” if I don’t get it right.

What does balance mean to you? How do you manage this ever-changing process of achieving balance in your life?

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Lines and Balance

Downtown Chicago is all about lines. Straight, angled, and sometimes curvy lines. Lines soaring to the sky and back down again. For my few days in Chicago last week I was in the downtown area the whole time. In between the convention I attended, I managed to take in a few sights… an architecture cruise on the river, Millennium Park, and the Art Institute. I would have loved to spend more time there, getting to know the city. I barely scratched the tourist surface. The bottom line – I’ll just have to go back!

Today’s image is one of the first edited with my brand new toy – Lightroom 3. My birthday is today and this software is now installed on my computer as a birthday gift from my family. I have had this growing urge to learn something new in the last couple of months and Lightroom came out as the winner as I looked into software. Apart from the overwhelming nature of learning a new program, I can tell this is going to be fun! You will likely be seeing all sorts of crazy edits here, as I learn the software and play around. Like any new technique, I’ll go overboard and then will settle into my style again eventually. That’s just the way I learn.

I can also tell, I haven’t been doing enough of this – playing and spending time on my art. I haven’t found a good balance yet between all of the things I want to do in life as an artist/engineer/mom/friend, and I tend to overwhelm myself with “to do” lists. Finding balance is something that will be a big focus for me in the coming days and weeks. My birthday reminds me I’m a Libra, Bilancia in Italian, and the scales are my symbol.

Change is coming. Not just because it’s a new year for me. Not just because I have the new website (still!) in the works. Not just because of the season. Change is coming for me because I need to find a new balance point. The scales have tipped too far.

 

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