Finding your passion

Sorry readers, I have been focusing more on my other blog [blogs.mountunion.edu] far too much and not giving this one enough lovin! I promise I’ll make it up to you.

In the past few weeks I have celebrated my 21st birthday and St. Patrick’s Day (hence the green beer in my picture!). I have started training for my summer job and I have started getting extremely excited for the upcoming baseball season. Overall, life has been pretty damn good… not to mention, the Indians home opener is a little over a week away! (Did I mention I’m excited for baseball season?)

So, fast-forwarding through all the other happenings in my life, today told one story that really stood out:

Well, first, let’s rewind a little bit. Growing up I always knew I was going to go into Communication… I was never really fond of science and math never quite cut it for me, but interacting with people, writing, public speaking, and coming up with creative ideas were all my strong points (or at least things I had always enjoyed).

We all know that the Comm field is pretty broad and one could go in any direction. I went through wanting to be a journalist to a news anchor to a radio DJ… Fortunately, Mount Union helped me get a taste of what each job would be like.

In the back of my head, however, there was always a strong passion for public relations. As I learned more about the field, I started falling more and more in love with it.

After writing for our paper and working for our TV and radio stations here on campus, I finally decided that PR was what I wanted to pursue.

Now, back to today’s moment.

We had a field trip down to Fahlgren Mortine, a PR agency in Cleveland. Listening to the professionals talk about their job and how much they love it got me so excited. Pfft, as if I didn’t love PR enough as it was! These people had such a strong passion towards public relations and it showed through everything they spoke of. This trip inspired me so much. I would love to visit more agencies to see what their businesses are all about.

I love when I have experiences like this because it really helps motivate me to follow my dreams. You know what I always say, DREAM BIG!

The moral of the story is—

Go after your dreams, no matter how big. Don’t let one small setback keep you from chasing what you want. Determination is key. And as my girl Katy P says, “Maybe a reason why all the doors are closed is so you can open one that leads you to the perfect road.”

If you have read my blogs before, you know I am a big preacher on finding our own happiness as well as chasing our dreams. I find that these two go hand in hand.

The people I’ve met today as well as people I have worked with and met in the past have all shown me this strong passion towards what they do. What is most important in life is being happy with what you choose to do. Put your happiness on the top of your list of goals — everything else will fall into place. If you don’t love what you do and it doesn’t make you happy, remember, you only live once. Wouldn’t you rather smile everyday instead of being miserable?

Do you believe?

Do you believe in guardian angels? I sure do. Granted, I am not a good Christian — I used to be… I went to church almost every week from baptism until confirmation, and then here and there throughout high school. Eventually, I stopped attending mass, but that didn’t mean I stopped believing in God.  More so, however, I am a firm believer that there is always someone watching over you. I believe there is a specific angel assigned to each of us and they help us with our lives day to day.

My mom is a firm believer in this and I can assume that that’s where I get it from. She has even went to a psychic-person who actually described her guardian angel to her. I hope to someday have the same experience.

Throughout my life I have had many instances that  truly made me believe. In turn, I got angel wings tattooed on my right foot to illustrate that someone is walking with me all the time.

Lately my mind has just been going in a million different directions and, well basically,  I just really need to stay strong. I’ve been doing pretty well, ya know, keeping my head high, having confidence, realizing what is important, etc… I know that I wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere without someone higher helping me out. The other day in class, I looked at my book bag and saw an imprint/shape of an angel. Ok, yeah, I sound like those people who see Jesus in toast, hate all ya want, but I take it as a sign.

What do you believe in?

Right place, right time.

You ever feel so set in your life? Kind of like you just know where you’re going and how you’re getting there? Sounds about right with me.

Lately things have been really starting to happen for me. I found out that I’m going to try to get a new internship this summer because someone whom I look up to kind of suggested I send her a resume (talk about exciting.) I’ve made goals for myself that are happening as I make them. Also, I’ve just been having a great time doing so!

As you may or may not know, I have this love for the Cleveland Indians. Lately I’ve been doing some more work heading in the right direction to end up there someday. My ticket sales class took me down there for a sales workshop last week, I worked at the TRIBE ON TOUR today and this coming Thursday I will be heading down to The Terrace Club for a VIP dinner with sales professionals from all over the country! Things are starting to look up and let’s just say it is all making me very antsy to get out of school and pursue everything I am dreaming of.

Speaking of the Tribe On Tour… What an experience. I love what the team is doing for the fans. First, Snow Days, now this! I didn’t really know what to expect with this whole tour thing; I knew Choo was going to be there along with Matt LaPorta (ooh la la) and some other players and big-namers… but that’s all I expected was some autograph signing. Well… I was a little bit off. First of all, we were at Summit Mall today — place was packed. The team was giving out tons of free merch to their fans — bobble heads, Wahoo Warmers, blankets, shirts, stuffed animals, etc etc… All of the players and head honchos were as friendly as ever, walking around, signing autographs, mingling with fans. It was beautiful to see, really. I love watching fans love the team, really brings back faith in CLE sports. It makes me happy because you hear about all the haters, yeah, you know the ones I am talking about, but then you see these fans flock to support the team. True fans. Today fans were able to take pictures, run through a real broadcast, win prizes, hit baseballs, etc… SO MUCH FUN! I was really proud of the team for doing something like this with the community.

How many more days until Opening Day?!

All of my friends who are already done with school and living their dreams keep telling me to enjoy college and slow down! Don’t you worry, I am enjoying college!

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Just go with it.

Happy Thursday, ladies and gents. Feels like I haven’t sat down and passed on my wisdom (ha.ha.) in quite some time. I guess you can say I have been busy — not just with school or work, but with, well, life.

Things are always happening (thank you, Captain Obvious) and I’m keeping that rather vague on purpose.

Ya know, throughout life you meet so many people and you, at the time, think that you’re happy and that is where you are supposed to be.

For instance, as you may have learned in previous posts, I loved my high school. I loved my friends, I loved my part-time job (YEAH! Johnny Rockets!), I loved where I was– get it? I loved it. I did not want to graduate and leave all behind. Don’t get me wrong; I could NOT wait to move on with my life and grow, but there was just something so comforting in, I guess my childhood? that was trying to hold me back. I even wrote an article for my school newspaper (that even got published in our yearbook) about that next step. Moving on, looking back, not looking back, holding on, etc…

May of 2008 came quickly, and soon I was in my cap and gown and leaving all that I knew behind. I was lucky enough to have had a wide variety of friends from all over the place, so for me, readjusting to new things was not hard at all.

Fast forward to August of that year. I moved out of the comfort and love that I got from everything I had in Cleveland and came down to good ol’ Alliance for college. Although you may have predicted that it was hard for me to leave, it took no time for me to become adjusted here and find my niche. I soon took advantage of all college had to offer; parties, food (yeah, I was no stranger to the freshman 15…or in my case..ehh, let’s just say not 15), friends, activities, classes, etc… The list goes on and on.

As you may or may not know, I am very involved on campus and I have set my foot in a lot of doors that will  help me in my future.

Anyways, I guess what I’m getting at is while you think there is a sense of belonging here, or this is where the whole cliche “I found myself in college” is proven wrong. For the past year or so I’ve felt like something has been missing. For a while there I even thought I was depressed because there was just always something bothering me. Don’t get me wrong, I had these great opportunities. Shit, I even spent my summer interning in the front office for the Cleveland Indians — hello, dream come true! But still, something was just, well, wrong.

I took the responsibility to talk to a higher power to help me pinpoint what exactly was “holding me back” and I guess you can say I’ve figured it out.

(Amongst a few other things) I am so unbelievably anxious for my future. Some people are all worries about where they’ll be in 5, 10, x number of years. Some people never want to leave college. However, I could not have more opposite feelings.

If you know me at all, even as just a follower through my blog or Twitter, you know that I’m all about #DREAMBIG. That is just a term (although coined on “Juno” in a sarcastic tone) I like to live by. Quotes I love are “Don’t settle for less than you deserve” and “There is nothing wrong with wanting more.” Although that sounds kind of greedy, it is supposed to be taken in a sense of just wanting to grow both professionally and just as a person.

From realizing exactly what was holding me back, per se, I have figured out a lot.  After you pinpoint the negatives, you can easily (sometimes it’s easy) overcome them and then find (ignore how cheesy this sounds) true happiness.

If you have picked up on my personality at all through following my Tweets and blogs, you’ve noticed I love public relations, social networking, meeting new people and Cleveland. If a major/minor combo of communication/sport business isn’t a perfect fit, I don’t know what is.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my future lately and I could not be more excited and enthusiastic about the path I’ve chosen. Heck, I just took a mini field-trip up to Cleveland on Tuesday and I was just ecstatic the whole time. I’m going back up there on Thursday for an amazing opportunity (I’ll fill you in next time, I’m kind of on a mission with this post!) and I can not wait.

I know this post had a lot that had to be said and it wasn’t as clear as I would have liked, but I think you get it. If not, make with it what you want.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is that if you’re unhappy, figure out why, don’t let it hold you back, overcome it and BE HAPPY. Take everything in life as a learning experience.

Oh, and don’t forget…

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