Time To Get Serious

Oh yeah, I thought the same thing too for a while.

This blog is dead. Or was.

Between all and everything that has been going on in my life, blogging is probably the last thing on my to-do list for a very long time. Ironically, anyone could say that I'm married to the internet- I spend more time with it than my own friends (blame it on Facebook). But all the time I was online, I never publish an entry on this blog, despite all the hype that professional bloggers were getting.

I'd love to blame it on my previous job. It was too draining, too time-consuming, too blah-blah-blah. And in a way, it is true. I was often so drained by the time I return home from work or during weekends that all I ever care about was to lie down- as comfortably as I can possibly be without moving any unnecessary muscle- and breeze through Facebook or Google or my favourite TV show. There just isn't any energy or inspiration to do what I know I do best- writing. No stories, no journal, nothing.

But then, only a bad workman blames his tools.

I quit that job last August for many various reasons, and have spent the past four months mainly at home, taking off the burden of caring for my two siblings from my parents. But apart from that I have also been travelling to parts of the globe. I was in Europe with my aunt in September, and then last week my family and I took a trip to Beijing to experience winter. I love travelling, it has been my dream to see the world since I was a child. I was lucky enough to see Venice, Amsterdam and Hong Kong by the time I was 11, and as I often told my siblings- "Once you've seen other countries, your own seemed so small to you."

I knew from a young age that I would love to incorporate travelling into my career life once I grew up. I wanted to be an archaeologist since I was eight. But my parents, as all parents do, wished me to take a more practical path in finance. But life in a cubicle from dawn to dusk in not for me. I might be able to deal with it for a few years or so. But I cannot do it forever.

Since I have been at home, I've been considering many different options for my next step. What should I do next? Find another office job? Write freelance for magazines? Go back to college and study my lifelong dream, archaeology? Pursue a travel writing career? I know I'm good at two things- read, write and internet surfing (okay, maybe three). But I have neither paper qualification nor proper training on any of these. My qualification lies on the thing I can neither make head nor tail of, and let's be honest: the thought of going back into the banking industry (or THAT kind of boss) is nightmarish to me.

An idea came to me just moments ago, while I was surfing through the net looking at the options as a travel writer. The truth hurts, and whether I choose to be an archaeologist or a travel or fiction writer, unless I am Prof. Zahi Hawass or J.K. Rowling, I can't make it through. I live in a continent where money means everything and creativity is superficial. There is just no room for my dream ambition and if I want to make it, I have to go back to finance. But one thing that I do note that these writers usually begin their career as tentative bloggers. So here I am. We've got to start somewhere right?

I don't know what my life will bring me, or where these steps will take me. But I know what I'm good at, and I know what I have. For now, it is what is best.