Stop Searching
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 10:13:42 AM
Try being girl crazy for the better part of 30 years sometime. They tell me that when you stop looking for your better half, you'll find it. It's a nice phrase, but I think the best translation of that is just that you can't predict when it'll happen. And I'm not a big believer of destiny and fate, so I don't even believe there's any certainty it will happen. On the other hand, if you actually focus on yourself, and make sure your own life is interesting enough to keep you occupied and entertained without someone else leading you everywhere, you'll hopefully be doing fun things that lead to meeting people. Plus you'll also seem interesting, because you're active and doing things you care about.
I've never really been that way. Whenever I list interests, I end up including "girls". And a million other things. But nothing I'm all that passionate about. I saw a status message on Facebook last night that read "Decide what to be and go be it." I haven't really decided what I want to be yet. Yes, I've had a steady occupation for the better part of ten years now. TEN YEARS! I've been in software, making web applications and database for ten years. Recently, I've started to shift gears in this crazy corporate world towards becoming something we call a "technical project manager." That means less development and more planning and maybe even managing. In other words, being really organized. More importantly, it means I can use my brains to make projects go smoothly without doing the grunt work. My intention is to make sure the specifications I provide for a project are useful enough to keep developer frustration to a minimum and make sure the client gets what they expect. It's actually all pretty exciting to me, and I am eager to make it go well. But I don't know if I'd say I'm passionate about it.
When I did freelance web development, I played the part of salesman, project manager, technical project manager and developer. And in a pinch, designer. Yikes! And I really liked overseeing the project. The work I went into scoping out and estimating a project meant that development was just a simply matter of following a checklist and executing on a plan that was already developed. At my full time jobs, the details are usually much more sparse. The plan is left up to the developer, and sometimes what gets done isn't really what was expected. It's a mess I hope to clean up.
But that doesn't really answer the question of what I might be passionate about. That doesn't make me an interesting person! I've tried to figure out that on several occasions, but I guess the trick is to DO more things and see what I really get into. I'm definitely glad I went forward with getting a motorcycle. I love to ride! And I'm sad that the riding season has ended so quickly after I've started. I really look forward to spring! I also like driving, too. And my car is fun to drive. But then it's illegal to do anything too fun on the road. I should look into Autocross. But ideally I'd buy a cheap beater car that I can race on the track rather than destroying my daily driver! Another expensive hobby. I like things like riding bike and hiking and swimming and photography. But I like variety! I like doing a little of everything. It's just hard to become fully immersed in anything with all the different things I do. I love movies. I even have a blog where I used to watch movies and review and analyze them and even try to apply their message to my own life. But how interesting is someone who spends all their time watching movies? I like computers and sometimes gaming, but I really seem to have lost passion for games, especially solo but even sometimes for competitive games. And I love just being social and hanging out with people and joking around. I enjoy deep conversations. I love it all. And I still can't get past the idea that if I just found the right person to do all those things with me, it would all be even better. But living this way doesn't seem to be lending itself to finding that person.
How do I stop looking? How do I find something if I'm not out looking? How do I appear interesting to other people? Where is my passion? What does my future hold?