Neeta Jääskö är bosatt i Inari i Finland. Smyckeskonstnär som spränger gränserna mellan det traditionella och nytänkande inom samisk design. Följ hennes liv och tankar på bloggen under juli månad. _______________________________________________________________________________
Neeta: Last week's blog post comes in late on account of some extensive soul-searching I've been doing recently. I also have a job, which takes up some of the time I'd be happy to dedicate to blogging, but mre on that later. I have been making my five-year review, five years after things were set in motion.
I'm at the stage in my life when I've accomplished everything I wanted five or six years ago when I was fresh out of school with my matriculation exams behind me and few ideas of what to make of life. So I tried whatever came up, got into jewellery, got the training, and now I've got my own business and brand, and a pretty clear idea of that they're about. I got a load of other stuff in my personal life I wanted as well, but that I will spare for a less public outlet.
I repeat, because this is very important: everything I dreamed of having in my life back then came true. EVERY SINGLE THING.
This wasn't a result of a rigorously planned and documented project with (or without) a timeline. I just realized upon reading old journal entries that the life I dreamd of living one day is here, I'm living it now, and expanded my observations from there. I knew what I wanted, and every week or at least every month I did something to make that happen, sometimes without even realizing. Every interesting-looking stone I bought "for later" was a baby step that led me here, and the stones have come in handy when I've been asked for something special.
I suppose when you know what you want, you will find a way to get it without even thinking about it that much. The unconscious part, though it's only the beginning, is crucial and it's about taking the baby steps so long that you eventually learn to walk, and the run. This is very encouraging in this time when I'm plagued by self-doubt and fear,
although it doesn't make them go away. I still lie awake at night.
Anyway, it's easy to find or invent patterns in retrospect, when things that led to me being her have already happened, but future still eludes us all, no matter how many business plans we draw up or however much time we spend soul-searching or analyzing stock market development (did you know that on the day Osama bin Laden was
murdered, the price of silver dropped? Fear not, it's back up and rising).
What the people who tell us to follow our dreams usually omit, either by mistake or intention, is that when it becomes real life, it ceases to be a dream. That is why it's so easy to miss the things about your everyday life that you only used to dream about in the past, and that can also bring about a feeling of emptiness. It does for me, anyway. I
have or have had everything I desperately dreamed of a few years ago; and I can only think of what will I dream of now? If this is not "enough", what else do I really need? What do I want?
There is a lot of wisdom in seizing the moment, living in the eternal now and being happy just being who you are, where you are, doing whatever it is you're doing, but it can get stale and disintegrate into complacency, which, as you know, KILLS. I kid thee not. The
forces that drive creativity, innovation, changes, reforms, are more often than not born out of wanting to be somewhere different, picturing that specific situation, and then starting to arrange one's world to bring about that preferred situation. Curiousity did NOT kill the cat.
Insisting upon following one's dreams entails a lot of hard work, sacrifice and discomfort, and doesn't suddenly transform one's life and make it better, least of all easier. Bad things will still happen and deadlines and irritating people in shop queues will still exist.
But I know that the only way to get even close to true happiness and fulfillment is to at least try to pursue one's dreams - that way things will eventually fall into perspective, and the irritating people won't matter so much.
It's quite late, verging on early next morning, and I will regret staying up. But I wanted to finish with this train of thought and wake up later this morning with a little bit clearer head of what actually needs to be done and what has got to go. Thursday evening I will take off to Inari, at long last, to visit my people and celebrate my grandmother's birthday. There will be business to take care of, but I'm planning on having a one-day holiday, too, and finding some inspirational people to speak with! I like it how different the environment is here by the Barents Sea but I do miss my forests and lakes, and the sea and the fells can get boring, too.
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