When your actions define who you are: Blogging and Personal Finance, how did I ever get here?

eemusings did an awesome post called when writing is in the blood. She always knew she wanted to be a writer, and it was just in her blood so to speak, so blogging is just the natural extension of that.

I think that’s amazing, knowing your passion so early on and at such a young age. It’s incredible to me when people just know.

Me, it’s the opposite.

Frankly, I never wanted to become a writer.

Nor did I ever want to touch numbers for a living or for fun (Hah! Look how well that turned out!)


HOW DID I END UP AS A WRITER?!

I loved English in school, and I loved to read. That’s about it, for ever wanting to be a writer or to do an epic novel that would change the world.

I think I might have tried my hand at writing a book ONCE when I was 7, but only to rewrite my own life.

I added in cool things like that the heroine had this awesome personal device assistant (PDA) that could do anything like organize her life, and this heroine also had the most amazing wardrobe that could change at will, not to mention the powers of being able to wish any food or candy into existence 😉

Luckily, this magical dream has come true with my iPod Touch and using the paid AwesomeNotes app.
As for the wardrobe, I just layer and add accessories now 😛 For the food.. well, here’s to hoping in 15 years that’ll come true.

I kind of fell into blogging around the end of 2006, muddled around for 3 years before finding my voice around the start of 2010. This all started as, and still is a hobby that I find a lot of pleasure in doing. I don’t want to go “pro” and quit my job to become a full-time blogger. Perish the thought! 🙂

I guess I still think of myself as some crazy rambler with too much to say and not enough places or people to bore with my excitement, so it surprises me some days that I have more than 5 readers. I’m genuinely mystified (and happy) when posts I wrote on a whim, become interesting to others.

Now, I’m always unconsciously searching for new blog posts in everything I do, see, hear and read.

If you had told me I was going to end up blogging with 2 blogs on the internet, I would have first asked you what the internet was, then what a blog was, and finally how you ever thought I’d ever write anything for an audience that doesn’t include my professor or teacher to be marked for a grade.


HOW DID I END UP IN PERSONAL FINANCE?

I hated numbers. HATED. Sure, I was good at math, but it took so many hours of learning and puzzling it out, that it drove me crazy.

I hated calculating, I hated not seeing things add up, I hated missing numbers.. you get the idea.

I was more interested in the concept behind the numbers rather than having to remember all of these RULES.

Remember BEDMAS? Hate.

*The order of how numbers should be calculated. BEDMAS = Brackets, Exponents, Division, Multiplication, Addition Subtraction.

So it’s even more unrealistic (dare I say funny) that I ended up writing about money. Who knew?

Now, I actually understand and am interested in how compounding interest works and if you had told my 18 year old self that I’d be blogging about numbers, personal finance and MONEY, I would have given you the “what have you been smoking and can I have some” eye.

People who don’t know what I do (business consultant) presume that I’m in finance just because I write about money:

  • Accounting
  • High Finance
  • Investment Banking
  • Money Manager
  • Number something or another
  • Statistician

…and none of those come even close, although I am my own personal Money Manager. 🙂

The application of math to real life is far more interesting to me now, and I wish I had learned about how it could be applied to my life when I was a kid. Who knows where I’d be now?

SO WHERE IS ALL OF THIS POST GOING, FB?

Basically, I don’t want you to give up on anything or to exclude anything from your life (like I did) just because you aren’t a writer or very good at numbers.

If you have varied interests, follow them. See where they go, and if they die early on, shrug and move on.

Keep an open mind, give everything a shot, and don’t get discouraged because you aren’t who you think you should be.

None of us are really who we thought we’d be when we were kids, or even up until the end of college.

Heck, I wanted to be a ballerina. Then an art teacher. Then a pianist. Then a marketing assistant.

We all fell into a lot of what we’re interested in, or what we’re doing, and we learned along the way. The key is just to try, practice and not give up before even starting.

As for eemusings asking if we ever wanted to excel at what we do for fun (like blogging, photography, a musical instrument), I think if we’re really passionate and interested in what we’re doing, we will eventually, and naturally excel over time.

Once the passion is gone, the love is gone, and it becomes something you resent or hate.

For instance, I played the violin and viola, and even sang for many years, but my true passion has been, and always will be just the piano.

So I gave up the other two instruments and now I practice on the piano for fun and for myself. And I sing in the shower 😉

What about you? Do your actions define who you are?

Have you experienced something similar?

About the Author

Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver. I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year. Now I am self-employed, and you can read more about my story here, or visit my other blog: The Everyday Minimalist.