Finding the right balance
I started this blog for two reasons. The first one was to better express myself in ways I couldn't do verbally, or through my lens. To me, it comes more natural to write my thoughts on a piece of paper than to express them verbally. The second reason, was to commit in managing my time more efficiently and spend time in the things that boost my creativity. I thought I could easily manage this by sticking to a plan. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked out quiet right the last couple of months.
When I decided to redesign my website and blog, I was going through some tough times at work. Nothing too worrying, I was no longer getting the satisfaction I needed. I'm the type of person that is happy when is busy and has more things to do than you can fit in 24 hours. I also wanted to find a channel, other than YouTube, to distribute and centrally store my creative work - my pictures and films.
How much time is there in a day, really?
At the time, I was in the process of changing jobs and had a lot more time to dedicate to this personal project. Therefore, I decided to redesign both my website and relaunch my blog, thinking, this time, I will maintain a good cadence and post at least twice a month.
Little did I know. When I'm exposed to new things I tend to give my 110% I do. So when I started the new job, I gave 110% of myself in it. I tried to balance this out by dedicating my weekends to creative work, and even picked up a 10-week broll challenge. But that didn't last long.
After 5 weeks in, I was overwhelmed. I'm no vlogger, neither I'm your typical YouTuber. I don't make money from it, and I aspire to do so-although I wouldn't say no if I was offered. This is my hobby. Would I change careers if I was back in my twenties? Absolutely! But I'm in my mid-thirties now and I have a family to support. I see cinematography more as a creativity expression medium and a storytelling exercise.
Half way into the challenge, I found myself engaged in other activities that I felt were a bigger priority. Like finding a house for me and my wife to live in. The following weekend, we had a trip planned, weekdays started becoming longer finishing work after 8pm, and things started snowballing. Two months later and I've made no videos and I've written zero blog posts.
Knowing when to say “Enough is enough” is difficult.
I don't really know when to disconnect from my daily routine. All I know is that I missed being creative. I missed grabbing my camera creating spontaneous videos (I always have an idea and a flow I want to follow) and snapping photos.
Now that life changing decisions are over, I want to come back stronger and be even more creative than before, only because I know how much I missed this side of me. Because, it's OK to fall back, slack behind, get knocked down, but it's never OK to give up on things that motivate you, or let challenging times get the better of you.
Stay tuned. I have a couple of great videos and updates coming up!
Till next time!