Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Building A Better Me

Soundtrack: “Dashboard” by Modest Mouse

Among other projects like prepping my parents’ house for painting, I have been working hard at getting a cohesive and well-put-together portfolio done. Of course I have grandiose plans for it, it wouldn’t be me otherwise, but I am also being realistic in my expectations for it. The most important of these expectations is to build a portfolio that not only shows what my technical and creative skills are but also shows every person who looks at it who I am. This is a feat that I have found takes a large amount of introspection and self-reflection. I do not always like what I see, but I am having to leave that behind that and focus on the good parts. I am an abstract analyzer and thus I tend to reflect on how something could be better. That especially applies to me and for so long I have been in this mode of living where guilt and regret over past mistakes has defined me. I make myself a tragic figure instead of someone who overcomes adversity to come out on top. It is a tough thing to change when it is all you know.

So instead of dwelling, of late I have been working to apply my positive attributes to the things I know I am not good at. For example, I am not good at managing my time but I am good at managing graphic matrices and how things fit in a space. So how then can I apply that to my time management? It is forcing me to be even more creative with how I do things. And anyone who knows me knows that being creative is my favorite thing.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This line really caught my attention: "That especially applies to me and for so long I have been in this mode of living where guilt and regret over past mistakes has defined me. I make myself a tragic figure instead of someone who overcomes adversity to come out on top. It is a tough thing to change when it is all you know."

The thing it has me pondering on is the whole identity question. It seems there are three major routes to take.

1) let the past define us ... which is obviously unhealthy because we all have crap that would hold us back

2) remake ourselves into someone else ... I think the danger here is that when we struggle of fall short, it's incredibly easy to slip back into route 1

3) allow ourselves to be defined by an outside source, namely Christ ... the danger here would be failing to take responsibility for our actions, but the strength is that we seek to do route 2 but have a safety net to keep us from dropping back into route 1

Okay, enough of my rambling