Bad day at school: Give me any book with adventure and excitement. I need to escape LIFE therefore, give me another's life that is both more complicated and more exciting than my own. Before I know it I'm swimming oceans (ha, I wish), climbing mountains (yeah, right), fighting bad guys (do professors count?), freeing the prince (yeah...haven't even found him yet), and all sorts of other things that really can take my mind out of what I'm doing. As long as it's a book and it's not anything close to my life, I'm good to go.
Doubting my career choice: This doesn't really happen that often, but when it does I need research. No escape is satisfactory to me. Give me journal articles, real life stories (that pertain to my career), or anything with a statistic showing that not only are employers looking for people with my future degree, they are also paying well for someone with my degree AND I have options with my degree in the chance that there isn't a job open. I need reassurance here and only facts can give that to me.
Doubting my writing ability: Give me J.K. Rowling and her land of awesomeness. You'd think by being surrounded my so much awesome this would lower my self-confidence but funny enough, it doesn't. It reminds me of this quote that Harry said in Order of the Pheonix: (I might be a little incorrect in the wording because I'm doing this from memory and don't have my OOTP with me, but here's the jist)
"Every great witch or wizard (or author in this case) started out just where we are now.
If they can do it why not us (me)."
This quote will kind of hover over me while I read any of her books. It gives me the va-va-voom to get up and start writing/editing/whatever again. In the end the only thing stopping me from what I want is me and my own doubts. In the end. Doubts are not worth the time or energy that they consume. Everyone has a starting point and eventually I will get to where I want to go. This is what calms and comforts me the most.
So, now that you know what makes me take a chill pill, what books give you that needed calm down factor? I'd love any references you can give me in the comments :) Have a great weekend!
I always turn to Jo when I'm feeling down. HP makes me forget about whatever's bothering me and just bask in the awesomeness :)
ReplyDelete