Life Strategy + Vine

Hullo All!

I am ridiculously aware of how I've neglected this blog of mine. I'd offer an excuse but I have none. Let's just say that my fickle-minded brain prioritized other things. As an essay on the Thought Catalog said, "One thing you should do in your 20's is whatever the f*** makes you happy."

Pardon the french, but I found this to be both very true and slightly confusing. 

There are so many things I want to do and achieve in my life. Most people might tell me to focus only on one thing and one thing only to increase my chances of success in that field. But try as I might, I cannot just set aside the other things I want to achieve. Not lucrative they may be as a career, and implausible as they are now with my current skill set, I still want to be able to reach these dreams of mine. They aren't all that practical, but I want to go for them anyway. I know it is what will make me happy, so why deny it to myself? 

Time to have a serious talk with myself. You're welcome to hear my thoughts!

Have you guys had the opportunity to watch the film Limitless?

I had the pleasure of watching this film on Netflix over the weekend. Don't worry, no spoilers here. What I want to share with you is the premise.

Limitless is about a lazy, uninspired writer who is disorganized, scatter-brained and generally unfocused in every single aspect of his life. Days drag on and on without getting anything done and things start to fall apart around him. Until one day, a person from his past comes up to him and offers him a solution: a pill that helps him access 100% of his brain. Doubtful of it, he takes it anyway and gets the most work and progress in his life done in a matter of days. He sky-rockets to success and is able to access abilities within himself that he didn't even know he had capabilities of tapping.

Now we all know how pill/drug-related movies go, but that's not what this is about (or is it?). I love the idea of being able to achieve his dreams and attain even more success than he (or I) can imagine. I am right with him when he suddenly feels a surge of inspiration, starts writing and letters and words just fall onto the page.

But there is no miracle drug that will help me like it helped him. And even if there was, I dare not try it for the fear of what it might ultimately do to me. Anything that sounds too good to be true, you know? So I decided to pick myself up and go about it a different way.

Enter the Life Strategy. 

More than just a list of New Year's Resolutions, the Life Strategy is a roadmap of where I want to go with my life. And it isn't just the one ultimate goal that I want to achieve, but two to three that I really want to attain in my lifetime. 

It helps me see a view of the larger picture I want to paint, and the road map of how I will be able to finally get there. All my moves should be calculated, but also with a sense of enjoyment. After all, why would I want to get to somewhere I wouldn't be able to have fun at? Of course, it isn't all about fun either. Dreams take hard work--and simply dreaming about them won't make them come true. 

I had a glimpse of how I would go about this back when I was in college when I was saving for my Arashi Fund: a weekly goal I would have to gradually save money to go to Japan. That dream hasn't been fulfilled yet because my priorities have changed greatly, but something to that effect. 

There are a couple of crucial things I have to do at the moment in order to start the snowball effect: 1.) Get a Job, 2.) keep drawing, learning and improving and 3.) Be your best self. 

In order to achieve the second, I got myself a drawing book. It's not a simple sketchpad, but an actual book similar to a Moleskin sketchbook. 

I want all the results of my inspiration to be in this one book, at the same time, improving my art, technique and style.

And to achieve the third, I've started taking things seriously in terms of starting to feel good about myself and my body.

The key to all this is be keep being inspired. I always try to keep inspired by looking at art, watching films, creating art, reading and writing. Not too much that I will get distracted, of course.

And I have to always refer to the bigger picture, in case I lose sight of what is directly in front of me. I wanted to share this with you all so that, maybe just maybe, you can help reel me in in case you see me swerving off course. 

In the next few months, I'll be able to see if this Life Strategy is effective. And I pray that it is. :)

Tuttah,

Mishie

P.S. Have you heard of Vine? It is a new social media tool by Twitter that helps you create very short videos! The result looks like a gif, of which I have always been a fan of! I created an account today with my Twitter handle @mishiewishie! Come follow me and check out my very first Vine on inspiration!