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Friday, August 6, 2010

The Grass Is Always Greener...

I’ll admit it. I don’t think I have the same drive and work ethic that I used to. At least it seems like I may have lost some steam over the past few years.

Once upon a time I was one of the students who had passion and worked as many hours as it took to get a project completed to my liking. Then somewhere around my 6th year of college, which translates to my 4th year of architecture school, I started to lose that drive for success and was satisfied with good enough. I was no longer willing to stay up all hours of the night, multiple nights in a row to have a great project. There was a timer in my brain that said: if it is not done by 1:00 a.m. then it’s not going to get done. It was simple. It was black and white with no gray area. I like to believe that this happened simply because I was burned out, not because I lost my passion for design and success. When this phase came over me I would reason with myself saying that it will be different in the future when I’m actually getting paid for this or at least on the job I won’t have to worry about classes other than my studio

Here I am now. Slightly past one year out of school, creating more excuses as to why I shouldn’t have to work more than 40-45 hours per week and always being satisfied with work that is good enough. Only now the reasoning goes something like: it would be different if I actually got paid a decent salary or it would be different if I actually had some say in the work I’m doing

This is my wake-up call. In all aspects of life it seems like we’re always saying the grass is always greener on the other side instead of being present and making the most of our current opportunities. Well I am going to start applying that into my work life and attempt to regain some of that lost passion and ambition. There will always be a lame reason not to do something. I figure that some of my reasons for not wanting to go the extra mile in my work aren’t completely ridiculous but at the same time I need to just suck it up and make the most of where I am at right now. Hopefully this will help me to see the grass as a beautiful shade of green everyday and my opportunities will expand.