Anywhere

2 months since my last post?! Sorry you guys, I’ve started several drafts since then about Norway, Åre, mundane job hunting, etc., but I think my thoughts have been quite scattered in between my trips and cafe shifts this summer. I’ll dig up the drafts and maybe post them after 🙂

Meanwhile, I’ll share a song that got me in the mood to write this post:Anywhere

I’m writing to you with a belly full of a very-non-vegan “Full Irish” brunch (See below). Potato bread, soda bread, fried eggs, sausage, ham, white and black pudding (still not sure what that meant), and a bonus scone because I made a new friend last night with the very lovely waitress here! I made my way to Ireland this week because the tickets were cheap from Stockholm and I had some time to step away from my usual routines of working and searching for work. It’s actually been a positive schedule lately- feeling better about managing my time and staying motivated to learn new things, meet new people, work out, give time for myself (spiritually mainly as the focus), and realize when I’m spinning myself crazy…Usually my step tracker tells me when I’ve lost it (when it hits about 25,000 steps! ha). So I’ve been making some steps in Dublin and now in Galway. The purpose of the trip was just to get that adrenaline of the unknown pumping through my blood again! Alex stayed behind to work, and even though I didn’t know anyone in Ireland really, I am hopping around with couchsurfing (and am still alive, Mom!).

I’m working on writing an application to start a new program at the Impact Hub in Stockholm. The program is the Social Impact Award, which supports brand-spanking-new entrepreneurs to pursue their ideas to start an initiative that works toward making a difference in social issues (it could be something hot like climate change, migration issues, or stuff that’s been around forever like including elderly people in technology communication, or creating solutions for people with disabilities.) I’m so on fire for it! It’s so refreshing to be reading scientific articles about  social entrepreneurship in Sweden, Europe and the US and where they converge, it’s fun to read the impacts that working with a purpose has on people’s living quality, as well as the impacts THAT itself has on society (less trips to the doctor, less crime, and overall just a positive ripple effect), not to mention the ripple effect of their initiative to making the world a better place (and believing that it’s happening).

Anyways, I just thought I’d share my excitement and update on my job hunting perspective… It’s not always so easy to run into something that you love to work with, especially if you’ve been working with something for a long time and you realize you don’t see the passion or purpose of it anymore. If any of you want to have a chat or skype about what it is that you want to work with, or even just eliminating the things you don’t want to work with, I’d be more than excited to brainstorm with you!

I love the quote by Thoreau, which I saw on the wall at an “eye-sight” gallery in Dublin, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” It reminded me of the quote on my notebook by Marcel Proust, stating that “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Ironically, Alex noticed this quote before I left for Ireland, which was a point in his argument that I didn’t need to travel to have these fresh and deep epiphanies. It’s true, but the discomfort of traveling, and the excitement of new people, new accents, unknown roads and imagining life in different places can make you appreciate the opportunities that, indeed, are right in front of you!