Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

This post is long overdue. There are some reasons for that, which I'll explain, and I'll also be talking about some changes that'll be happening to this blog and my life. 

First of all I'm currently in month 6 of my Toronto life and the reason I've been gone so long from this blog has been due to a bit of a downturn I was experiencing in my mood. As this cold and bitter winter dragged on and I found myself fully engulfed in my new job, I also found myself feeling drained of energy and my life seemed meaningless and lacked joy. A big reason for this, I believe is my expectations. As is evident from reading previous blog posts, I was very excited and enthusiastic for this next chapter of my life that came with moving to Toronto. I think my end of winter blues came about due to unrealized expectations. Life was not happening as planned or as fast as I wanted and I was making myself miserable. 

More specifically; starting a new job and life in a new city was a tough transition: tougher than I expected it would be. I've been in a bit of a flunk all winter but I'm starting to feel better now. How is it that I achieved this new-found enlightenment? I just decided to I guess. It's really that simple: I remember feeling a similar way when I previously lived in Peterborough & Lindsay. In that case I eventually gave up and moved back home, essentially running home to mommy when life got tough. This time I wasn't going to do that! I realized that it had really only been a short time and that if I was determined to make a new life for myself here in my new city, that I had to stick it out, for better or for worse. I had made a big, scary change in my life and I did something that a lot of people wouldn't have the guts to do and I wasn't going to let anything stand in my way...not even myself!

I'm determined to make my life the best it can possibly be and I know that my external circumstances aren't always going to be amazing or great but I don't have control over a lot of that, what I do have control over first and foremost is my attitude and how I approach life. So I'm now focusing on the positive, taking stock of the great stuff and being grateful for the life I have, because yes even in the hard times, it could always be worse. I'm grateful that I have a great paying and secure full-time job that a lot people would kill for, I'm grateful to be young, single and living in the heart of a big city. I'm grateful that I do still have a lot of friends and family who love and care about me and just want to see me suceed and be happy. I've started to look at life a little differently in that it may not look like the 'sex in the city' dream I've created in my head but it pretty damn awesome when I refocus my view from that of childlike naivety & idealism to one of realism about how the real world works. It's a breath of fresh air to realize that if I continue to work hard, be positive, grateful and be myself then life will get better. I can't escape life so I might as well embrace it and appreciate the beauty and amazing thing that is my life because it will change, that's the only thing I know for sure, I'm not sure how it will change but I know it will so I choose to believe it will change for the better. 

Also in the vain of positively appreciating my life as it is now, I realize that having all this extra time on my hands, because of my lack of social life, is a bonus for working on myself and my many side projects. What are these projects you may be wondering? Well they have to do with the changes I mentioned earlier in this post. I've decided to take up my cake baking & decorating hobby once again and hopefully turn it into a successful side business. I've created a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AMcakesTO, twitter account: @amcakesto and soon to be unveiled baking blog and/or vlog. I've also decided that this blog will be refocused from the self-indulgent ramblings back to more concrete ideas on how to create an amazing or uncommonly wealthy life. :)

I'll also be introducing a couple new blogs and possibly a vlog this summer. I will be increasing my web presence through creative endeavours like t-shirts (using Zazzle & Snaptee) and writing as well as using many of the social media platforms I've involved with as ways to connect all these elements and increase traffic/awareness. As a mentioned I'll be creating a baking blog and possible vlog that'll complement by baking/cake decorating business. The other blogs that I'll be creating will be related to other interests of mine: a movie review blog called '3 Stars' and a blog of 'my favourite things' that'll highlight new tech, apps, gadgets, tools, fashion and everything else that I'm loving du jour. Links to come: stay tuned! 

I'm really excited for these changes and these new endeavours. They'll take up a lot of my 'free' time, which will be grand because they're all things that I love to do. I know that once I focus on myself and doing the things I love life will open up in amazing ways for me. Stay tuned, I'll keep you updated! As always, here's to your uncommonly wealthy life! :)

Fall Updates

In honour of the changing of the seasons and this beautiful Fall day here is an update on the status of my great summer purge of 2013. It was the summer of 2013 and I engaged on a rather ambitious summer project to become more of a minimalist. I set myself some lofty goals and I didn't get to every one of them because some were much bigger jobs than I originally thought; however, I did achieve a lot that I'm very proud of. I put a dent in my stuff and I took that all important first step and made some great strides towards living a more minimalist life.

Firstly, I tackled my closet with help from a friend and purged 170 pieces of clothing and I stuck to not shopping throughout the summer. Now with the new season I've found myself doing a bit of shopping again but I also know that another purge is due in order to organize my closet for a new season. I'm setting myself a new goal of shorting through my fall and winter wardrobe and then figuring out how to shop based on what pieces I already have and what pieces I need in order to have coordinating outfits that I'll actually wear. In terms of purging my accessories, I did pick out the ones that I really like and enjoy and wear the most often and I got rid of a lot of old and out of style ones.

The other big purge job I did was my books. I'm most proud of this because it was long overdue and I feel so much better getting rid of that access weight I've been carrying around with me for way too long. My books were originally on several different bookshelves throughout my parents house and I didn't know which books I had read or still needed to read. I also had way too many out of date texts books just hanging around and collecting dust and that I hadn't looked at since University (over 5 years ago!). So I sorted my books into the following categories: read & keep, donate/sell, and to read. I also sorted through the books I had that I needed to return to various friends and tried to do so as much as feasibly possible. I put all my books I was going to keep onto one bookshelf and organized them according to read, to-read, self-help, cookbooks and other.

The finished beautiful masterpiece of my bookshelf! :)

In the case of my textbooks I was originally planning on just throwing them out because they are all way out of date and who wants/needs them at this point? But then I found out that a cousin of mine has been collecting old texts books at garage sales and re-selling them on amazon to all sorts of people, like students and collectors. So obviously I thought that instead of wasting these books and having them end up in a garage pile, I thought I would at least try my hand at the amazon seller world and see what came of it. So far I have sold 2 textbooks for $50 each, which is awesome considering I didn't have that money beforehand and now the books are going to a good home, at least I hope.

My pile of textbooks just waiting for a happy home to take them in. 

Now in terms of the other challenges of organizing all my stored stuff in my parents basement and purging my sticker/paper collection, I haven't quite got to that yet. They're very big jobs that will become part of a new Fall challenge for myself. The sticker/paper collection is a tough one because of the sentimental connection I have to it because I bought a lot of it as emotional crutches when I was going through a hard time. I guess having to go through and purge the stickers and paper represents in my head having to face that dark time in my past, but maybe it'll also help me cleanse and heal those old wounds? I think it is something I still must do.

My new Fall challenge to myself includes organizing and purging my winter clothes, my stored stuff at my parents house and my sticker and paper collection as well as continue to sell my textbooks on amazon. As always, here's to your uncommonly wealthy life! :)

Welcome to My Blog!

I have been struggling for weeks to find the perfect topic for my very first blog post. I had so many ideas floating around in my head but I was never really happy with any of them. Just now as I was lying in bed unable to sleep and contemplating my existence it came to me, in the same way that any good idea does, like a bolt of lighting that jolts you out of bed and into action. So here I am with my very first blog post about... but wait I need to give you a little background before I explain the premise of this post and the blog itself.

In the past few months of my life there have been a lot of weird things that have happened to me. It's funny how at the time one can look at their life and feel stagnated but in looking back with hindsight bias one can see the forest for the trees....too many analogies possibly in that one...? Anyways, what I am trying to say is that all these weird occurrences have added up and eventually led to this one glorious moment and the beginning of this blog!

It seems like all the bizarre occurrences of my life this past year have led to this one bizarre day a few weeks ago that I remember very well. So I will start with explaining that I was feeling like I had been stuck in a rut and going around in circles for a long time when it comes to my life and career path. I have been stagnated by my very own decision paralysis. I think a lot of people can relate to this state; it is a state of being in which you find yourself unable to move forward because of the inability to make a concrete decision and act on it. I have so many ideas, interests and possible avenues that I could focus my attention towards that it is hard for me to decide which one to choose. I am paralyzed by a fear that I will make the wrong choice AGAIN and then I will be stuck or in the same place as now or in an even worse situation. I also fear that if I choose one thing than by default I will have to give up the other things. This is tough for me because I know I need to make a decision in order to move forward and I really want to move forward with my life and start doing what I love.

The point being that this was never more evident than the day I went to a healthy living expo with my best friend. At said Expo, I meet a woman who was a holistic healer, working at a healing practice that specialized in various techniques, one that I had never heard about before was colour therapy. I was skeptical but curious about the idea and my friend was the courageous one that asked for an explanation. The woman explained that is was the use of a variety of coloured jars and asking someone what colours appealed to them the most and then an explanation of how this is related to their personality and life. So my friend ventures forward and points out some coloured jars she finds attractive and the woman starts in on a perfect explanation of my best friend's personality and her best traits, it was eerie. I then decided to try it as well, seeing how she was highly accurate with my friend. So I stepped forward and pointed to a bottle which was a mix of orange and purple. She then explained that the fact that I choose that particular bottle means that I am a healer, someone who has a lot of wisdom to share and is able to help people in the healing arts, however I have a lot of fear that surrounds these gifts and my wisdom. BAM! Wow, that was a life changing moment for me. Both my friend and I were blown away by the accuracy of this stranger's description of us based solely on the colours that appealed to us. It was a big wow moment for me and made me think...

For example, I have for most of my short life always been attracted to health care related jobs and I have known from an early age that I wanted to help people, no matter what I ended up choosing as a career and life path, it had to be something that contributed to overall society in a positive way. I started at an early age as a Lifeguard and I taught swimming lessons to children, I volunteered my time and qualifications as often as possible to first aid related causes. I went into university with the intention of going to Medical school and when that didn't pan out I tried out nursing but I didn't finish my degree and then I found myself employed as a 911 operator for ambulance services. It may seem that my choices have been related to my life and work experiences and expertise but I have also found myself drawn to these professions, but somehow feeling not fulfilled in them. I thought about going the complementary and alternative medicine route but that was something that also required a lot of time and money and little support from family, friends and society as a whole. So now I find myself working for the municipal government doing a job that leaves me unfulfilled.

I have been thinking a lot lately about how I am afraid. I keep myself paralyzed and stuck because I am afraid of making a decision, I'm afraid of making the wrong one. So I don't make any decision and I stagnant. I have ideas but I don't start anything because I'm afraid I wont finish it, or I'm afraid I'll fail or even that I'm afraid I'll succeed. Most of all, I'm afraid of being vulnerable, of just totally being my true damaged, scared, horrific and beautiful self with another human being. So here I am at the corner of the rest of my life stuck scared and the rest of my life beautifully open and I find this blog. This lowly little blog can be that first step for me, it can be that place where I can safely try being vulnerable with the training wheels on. I want to share my life with the world, my trials and tribulations and the lessons I learn along the way so that others can learn and grow as well and maybe even get a little bit of entertainment out of it.

So on that fateful day this woman who I have never meet before and doesn't know me from Adam, has summed-up my entire life and existence in a couple sentences and with one dual-coloured bottle of liquid. My best friend and I both walked away from the experience feeling profoundly moved. What shot through me while I laid in bed this evening was that thought and those words from this woman; that I have a lot of wisdom to share and that I am afraid. I want to help people, I know that for a fact and I have always wanted to do that with my life, but I have struggled for a long time to figure out the right way for me to do that. I was hit tonight by the thought that this blog, this one right here, the one you are reading right now, can be that vehicle for me to help people. I know I am not the only person going through the things I am going through and I know I am learning and growing everyday and I really do want to share that journey with the world. If I can help one person's life be a little easier by learning from my mistakes instead of making their own then it will be worth it.

So welcome to my blog, Uncommon Wealth, the name of which comes from some distant memory from my youth. I think you can interrupt the title in whatever way seems fit for yourself but I know what it means to me. For me and in this context it refers to the richness that comes from a wonderful life, the wealth of happiness and prosperity that will never be found in monetary form. So here is to your uncommonly wealthy life! Cheers! :)