Managerial Advice

"Are you destined for greatness? How much time do you spend on your favorite activity? Are you entitled to good things in life and how do you assert yourself? When you do poorly on something do you give up or try until you do well?" ~Schermerhorn, pg. 49

The above are end of chapter probings from my Management textbook. Since I've been in school, it seems as though education not only strives to instill knowledge in young people, but direction and self confidence as well.

We're asked in touchy feely ways to write about our dreams and inspired that we can make them reality. We have guidance counselors to provide support, and I swear it's getting to the point where we're all going to sit in a circle and sing "Kumbaya".

"How much time do you spend on your favorite activity?"

This threw me. Not only because I'm so used to seeing the typical "you can be anything you want to be if you 'assert' yourself", but also because I want to know the answer to this question myself. How much time do I spend on my favorite activity?

Not much.

I've been so focused on "asserting" myself to success that I haven't been focusing on what I want to be successful at. It's so easy to become consumed by school as it truly is a job- one that's not paid for and comes home with you. Being the overachiever that I am (basically I just want to be out of school), I have pushed myself to graduate early, thus leaving me with even less time. Well, that and I have to work a real part-time job.

Anyway, my assertions towards success have been keeping me away from my real dreams. Yes, I want a degree, but what's the point of obtaining said degree if I am not doing anything with it? I love to write, but that's been a passion on the back burner. Fortunately, however, I have been updating my blog more and enrolled in a Writing the Short Story class at school, which I am loving. (My creativity has returned!) If I want a Bachelor's in English, I have to spend more time doing English.

And photography. I love photography. Whenever I do a portrait session and I see people who are incredibly self-conscious feel absolutely perfect in how their photos look, I feel incredible. Like I did something. That same feeling applies to my other photography as well, but in a different way.

I truly do enjoy learning, but I wish I could do so in workshops and focused mini sessions. School is so drawn out, and there's homework. But until then, my goal is to do what I love everyday. Write something everyday. Take a picture or work on developing my business everyday. If we can be whatever we want to be, why aren't we doing it now?

Bibliography
Schermerhorn, J. R. (2012). Exploring management (3nd ed.). Hoboken,  N.J.: Wiley ;.