How Outside Magazine Saved My Life...

I had been itching to get out of the airline business pretty much since I got into it. The summer I was 14, I worked in my dad's warehouse doing data entry, labeling newspapers and doing other stuff. It was a weird world I had ventured into, the walk from the office to the bathroom, all the way on the other side of the warehouse, was particularly scary for a 14 year old girl. There were stories of crazy people - like the crazy old European woman that would lift up her dress in meetings with her vendors and crazy people that tried to make me memorize the international rule and tariff books, for fun. I think that the combination of lacking sunlight and wacky people made me not want to ever go back. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated the job from my dad but I just wasn't that into it.

So numerous years and accelerated summer courses later, I landed back with my pops. What you may or may not know is that both my parents worked in the airline industry and my dad used to take me to the airport with him when I was a baby. I joke that I must have inhaled too much jet fuel as a kid.

So what I expected to be a short term gig, ended up becoming a career - one that I never actually wanted. No doubt it was what I needed at the time, I used to be scared to answer the phone and years later I could be found sitting at my desk with my office phone on one ear and my cell phone on the other! But jokes aside, I got stuck, I let it happen. My mom says I'm a gypsy, and that is something, along with all my creative aspirations, I turned off. At least I thought I could.

So I had this great, very hectic career, working with some awesome people and I couldn't breathe anymore. Traveled the world (didn't see much of it), rented an apartment in Manhattan (didn't see much of it) and I couldn't take it anymore.

Around the summer I turned 30, some great people made their way into my life and helped me uncover some of those passions of mine that I thought had been long lost at this point. I am a person that used to look at the sky, trees or ocean and try to see how many different shades of color and shapes I could see. It's sort of about training your eye and mine had been severely out of focus.

It took me months of mental anguish to start taking the steps to make some of the changes I needed to make. At a particular low point, I had to go on a few business trips. I was at the airport browsing the magazine stand and I saw the cover of Outside Magazine, on it were three surfers and it said "Dream Jobs - Turn Your Passion into a Paycheck." I didn't buy the magazine on the first flight or the second or the third. Finally on the fourth flight, after a particularly aggravating conversation about my career path, I bought it. I read the issue from cover to cover on that flight.

I realized there are millions of people in this world who hate their jobs but that I did not have to be one of them. Sure, it is only a small percentage of people that are successful doing something they totally love to do, but what is stopping me from being one of them? Me - that's my obstacle, that's it. So if basket weaving is what turns me on, might as well go for it.

I guess today is online journal day, given that I have spent hours online looking for a job over the past few weeks and I don't feel I'm getting anywhere at all, I think I had to remind myself what it's really all about.

PS Pick up an issue of Outside Magazine and get inspired!

Photo credit - Outside Magazine.