The perks of waiting

I thought a lot about time, lately. Yeah, there is no much point in doing it, I know, but I remember how - when I was younger - I used to dream about becoming something and thinking about studying to reach that dream and... I somehow expected it to happen just right after high school, as if that was a preparation to get me directly into the working world and just BOM, I would start doing exactly what I wanted to do because that was what it was expected of me. Does it make any sense?

Anyway it's definitely not gonna happen. Or in most cases. 

A concept that was extremely detached from my mind was the fact that, after high school, I would have to do years and years of other stuff before I could even just think about reaching a result that was close enough to what I wanted to do. 

Practical example: you want to be a chef, so you study at a cooking high school and expect to be put into a kitchen to prepare amazing dishes soon after you've hardly make it out of the school. Well, not really. Maybe you'll have to start as a waiter for years. Or a kitchen porter. And then, slowly, you'll learn the job on the field and will gradually level up and reach an always closer result to the one you hope to achieve. It's going to be.... well pretty hard that you will become Gordon Ramsay just after high school, don't you think?

Well, I can now think in these terms because I kind of lived it on my skin. I got out of high school with this thing about being an actress and now I don't even want that anymore. I had to realise I needed the money, and the experience, and the... life to do whatever I want to do. Like now, I aim on becoming a decent filmmaker who can pay the bills thanks to my films. 

Obviously it's not gonna happen now. It's not gonna happen, probably, in a few years. But it will, if I work hard and keep doing jobs that I don't extremely like but that are a good compromise to keep reaching for my dreams. I mean, I need to eat, I want to travel, I want to buy stuff and equipment and... yeah, I want to be independent so I need a job. Waitressing is not too bad to me, I like serving food to people as I am very passionate about it. I like their face when they see the food and I am lucky enough to be now working in a very renowned and healthy restaurant in a very nice borough in London so I am even proud of what I am serving. I am lucky enough that my colleagues are nice and my boss is nice. 

I have been working as a waitress since I was 16, I used to work during summers while my friends went to the beach or just relaxed. I used to try and make as much money as possible but... now that I think about it I've been courageous to do such think. It's easy to be lazy. It's even easier not to find a job, at the moment, due to this bloody crisis. So I think that the series of unfortunate events that led me here was... eventually quite fortunate. 

Thing is we are bombarded everyday with people who made it. They are like 15 and they did everything we could ever dream to achieve in life whatsoever. So... why can't we? We just get used to this way of life. The film one. The book one. The one that doesn't resemble 99% of the entire populations. And this gets us depressed but the thing is... It does NOT mean we will NEVER get to that point, it just means it might take more time and a bloody hard work. But it doesn't prevent us from making it. We just have to come to term with the fact that from one point to the other of our life-line, there might be a bit of a troubled ground and take a few more years. But what matters is that we get there, at the end. And nothing says for certain that we can't. Future is a bitch because it's so uncertain, but that's also what makes it changeable/variable/shifting. 

So yeah, that's what I thought about. What are your thoughts about this? I'd like to hear them.

Waiting for your comments!

Ellie x

Not enough time

Do you ever have the feeling you don't have enough time to do all the things you want to do?

I do. Lately more than usual. I remember a friend of mine used to tell me he was getting frustrated about the fact that he wanted to study as much as he could, train, do stuff but he was compelled to sleep at some point and to him that time was wasted.

At that time I thought he was exaggerating and I felt that being in his mind must be incredibly stressful and frustrating. But now... I think I understand the feeling.

Now let me explain, I know it sounds crazy:

a) I love studying. Yes, I admit I do. But not everything. I like to learn about things that I find interesting and, unluckily (or luckily?) for me, they are an awful lot. I regret so much not to have studied in a different high school because of this, too. I am not studying all of the things I used to, now, as my uni is very sectorial. Also, I work, and it takes away a lot of time to this. In addition, I am an extremely unorganised and inconstant person, which means I start all the way with something and I then get absorbed in something else which makes all the effort I put into my previous work pretty much useless. It happened, for example, with philosophy which I absolutely love but that doesn't sound as interesting when you're studying it on your own. I like to have actual people explaining things. I literally adore listening to good teachers and professors. Or even friends of mine explaining me stuff. I plan on learning loads of stuff by myself: philosophy, literature, history, physics, maths, history of art... It's just... such a nice feeling to be able to know all those things! Argh, I get chills just talking about it!

b) As many of you know I am in the middle of a very important and time-taking process of writing a book. I am almost to page 200 and it is taking away most of my time. Well, I want it to. Thing is I get very distracted by the internet and it is very difficult to me to write while I am at home here in Italy. I need to be surrounded by a specific environment to be able to put all my effort into writing. This is one of the reasons why my writing has been inconsistent during this last year. But I am now fully back on it and working like crazy on organising all of the research I did about the main topic and all the things I already wrote. It's harder than it sounds, I had genuinely forgot how hard you have to work to make something like that work.

c) I am a book addict. That's as much as I can say to justify myself (if I really have to). I am always reading some kind of books and sometimes even more than one at the time. My favourite time to read is before bed, as it relaxes me and I get fully on it. Lately, though, I have been dedicating myself a lot to writing so I struggled to find the time to read. This year, in addition, I set myself a goal of books to read, so I really want to read them all! It's just frustrating I can't do more than one thing at once.

d) I really enjoy training, going to the gym or keeping myself fit, anyway. It's nothing too big, I just enjoy keeping myself busy and for a mind as stressed and agitated as mine that's the best way of calming me down and just make me proud of what I do. I know it sounds weird said by me, but I genuinely get disappointed when I don't manage to do anything during the daytime. It just makes me feel good, maybe it's because of endorphins I have no idea but it just is and I struggle to find the time to do that also because it's freaking cold outside!

e) I am a film-lover and I spend days browsing through different kind of films, trying to find the one that suits my taste and sounds interesting. When I get into one, then, I need to make everyone aware of how good or how bad it is so it also takes away time emotionally. I know, it's weird, it's just that I have a massive list of films I want to see and between all of these things to do... how the hell am I going to find the time to watch a 2 or 3 hours film? In my sleep?

f) I unfortunately (or luckily?) work. So that... definitely takes away a lot of time. And it's tiring too. And when I am tired creating is just out of reach. Like, definitely impossible. My mind shuts down and oh, that's frustrating.

g) This is definitely unfortunate because I have sometimes to go to doctors to get checked, and we all know how long we usually wait at the doctor/dentist/therapist.

h) My physiological need to eat can't really be skipped and I am also quite picky, as many of you know. This means I spend a lot of time buying organic and good stuff I can make into something appealing and healthy. I noticed such a HUGE improvement in my health since I have been doing this that is actually... incredible and I'll never stop suggesting this to everybody.

i) I aaaaalso work as a Youtuber, videomaker and photographer so... that is not a job that takes away just a few minutes. I wish it did! Oh, well, I'd actually prefer the other one to do so. But yeah, I need to be available all the time and when someone needs a shoot it may take away entire days! And let's not even start with the editing. That takes ages sometimes.

l) I have friends and a family I cannot really ignore. And I don't want too. Sometime though, I have no idea how to manage it all.

So that's part of what's going on in my head. There are loads of other more private things I have to do and keep checked and think about and I am just HOW THE HELL CAN I DO ALL THIS, I WANT TO DO ALL THIS, WHY CAN'T I? I slept less and less, I tried to do more at once but.. yeah it doesn't help. So yes, that's frustrating. I feel like I need a timeturner.

Just join me into this rambling of stress.

Did it ever happen to you? When? How?

x

Ellie