I think I may have figured something out

I've written numerous times about my failure to follow through with things that I want to do, try to do, or think about doing.  It may be fear holding me back but it may also be a restlessness that had been satiated long enough to move on to something else.

I may not have be destined to actually finish anything off!

But this is not what I have figured out.

I figured our last night when I was so tired that thinking was rendered difficult.  I love this time because that is when brilliant ideas hit you, that is when solutions to problems pop up.  The only problem with this is that you are so tired that more often than not, you don't get up to write these things down and have forgotten them by morning.  However, in this case, I didn't need to write it down (highly unusual).

I like learning and researching about something new.
I like looking at millions of books about different subjects and then dropping it.
I guess that can explain why I could never figure out what path to take after high school, there were so many interesting ways to go and I couldn't think about choosing only one! 

Case in point:

With each of my boys in infancy there was the typical diaper rash experiences.  Who doesn't go through that, right?  Well, with each of them I noticed a sensitivity to the zinc oxide in the creams that you can buy.  Most have about 12-15% of this remedy in them no matter how expensive or how "natural" they claimed their product was.  Both of my boys were slightly allergic to the zinc in the creams as the higher the percentage the worse the rashes got.  So, being the fantastic mom I am, I began to research natural, holistic, organic and herbal ingredients that exist and I was going to develop my own product.

Great idea!!

I grabbed every book from the library, and read almost everything online that I could find.

The result:   I am more confused than when I started!!
I also thought that if I could learn about the ingredients that I would need then I could buy them and experiment on the combinations.  But the only place to get them here in Ottawa, is online.  So then I found a shop in BC that sold all types of ingredients for home made products. I loved it!  They were offering up franchise opportunities!  How about that!  Then I obviously thought that I could open my own shop and there for learn all I needed to learn about all homemade natural beauty products.  I knew of two areas in Ottawa that would definitely be the best locations that I could think off for success!  The Glebe and Westboro!  Amazing idea!  But what if I wasn't really good at running a business?  I proved myself capable in a home business, however, after two years I still was not running into actual profits over all the expenses.  And then there's the idea that I'd have to stay here in Ottawa if I were to start a business with a location presence. Hmm...still sitting on that business idea.


Then I decided that I needed to learn about holistic and herbal healing more deeply in order to understand what it was that I wanted to do with this product.  Not a bad idea seeing as how I love to learn new things and to study something that interests me.

However, online courses or mail order courses to learn these things are expensive and I am left wondering if it is indeed worth it to do this.  Why?  Because it would then make me compelled to start a career in the one field, and I question whether it is the only thing I want to do.

That is what I figured out about myself!!

If I study something, to become a qualified someone or other, then I feel that I may have shortchanged myself from being something else. Second guessing whether or not I made the right decision.

I had wanted to study to become a nurse, and I had to do correspondence courses to upgrade high school credits, and found that I was better at those courses than I thought!  But I never went ahead with nursing because I learned how emotionally involved I am with people no matter if I knew them or not, and knew that this would not be helpful.

I recently looked into studying holistic nutrition.  As I am looking for healthier ways to live my life and have had an interest in the health of my family, I thought that if I could learn more, I could help more people.  So what stopped me?  Two things.  One was the cost...yet again causing me to rethink whether this was the "it" I had been searching for, the career I really wanted.  And second, the most important one I believe in this particular case, local need.  This particular school, which is nationally acclaimed, is here in Ottawa.  Great! Even better!! Then I found a list of some graduates that worked here in Ottawa and decided to email a few of them and ask them to give me an honest answer to a burning question. 

How was business?

One woman answered that it was not bad, but she struggled to make it prosperous.

Another woman answered that it was not good at all.  She had five different businesses going at the same time, most of them related to each other, but a few were not related at all.

Another woman told me that she continued to have her certification and struggled just to keep her license going as she barely has any clients.

Verdict, Hubby and I think that Ottawa is not ready to embrace holistic health and nutrition the way more advanced cities are.  Maybe that is why an old friend from high school that has taken this exact same course here in Ottawa and is now located in Windsor.  And doing well, I am so happy for her!

Then there's the desire to become a writer.

I can't just write the story in my head, I've been trying that for the last 8 years.  I have journal upon journal and even have a whole bunch of files started on my computer of the same damn story started in different ways.  Mostly the same story but in many cases they are different.  I have been trying to incorporate a particular scene that I has come up with and a main character but have yet to figure out how to tie it all together.

So what do I think will help?  Studying how to write books by reading books that teach writing.  Redundant, I know.  But I don't have the time or the money to study it in university.

I recently found my portfolio.  In my early twenties I was a sculptor.  I went to great lengths to stylishly photograph all my pieces to make a portfolio and sent them off to universities with outstanding arts programs.  I was accepted to the University of Windsor, they said they were excited to have me come in, I never went.  I like to think that I chose to stay because I fell in love with the man of my dreams, but hindsight is 20/20 and I know now that I would never have lost him if I had went anyway.  But then again, I wouldn't have my kids now. So things work out for a reason, But I admit that I was nervous about spending ten thousand dollars to study to be something that I thought I already was.  I haven't sculpted a damn thing since then either. 

I have offered many examples of what I have thought of in these past few years as proof that I figured out that I am eager to learn new things but afraid to make one thing "my" thing.  Lost I guess.  And afraid that if I decide to do something tangible that it would be the wrong thing and have wasted time and money in that process of figuring it out. 

any advice?  Sometimes it is easier others that aren't as close to the problems as I am to help me see it clearer.  What do you think?