Discovering Your Journey
Ferin Bookstore - Lisbon, Portugal
“Who or what am I becoming?”
This question came up in a book I started reading at the beginning of this year, Practicing the Way by John Mark Comer, and it really challenged me. I kept pondering this question and started to really search deep within myself, in my heart, and realized I couldn’t come up with a firm answer. I’ve been through a lot in this short life I’ve lived and logically, we should always be changing and growing through life circumstances, amidst the ups and downs whether with family, friends, work - all the day to day things that come up. These things help shape us though don’t necessarily define us, and who we were truly created to be.
Thinking through this, again, the question kept pulsing through my mind - “Who or what am I becoming?”
You could say, looking at my life, I would be considered a “workaholic” - always busy, letting my work define me and take over my entire calendar. Not having any time for a social life or rest. Having to actually constantly train myself how to have a healthy social life and rest well. (Another book plug for you all! The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry because again, it can be a constant education to train oneself out of the hurry of the day to day and step into a balanced, healthy lifestyle.) Essentially, I was not allowing myself to truly live and be the person I was created to be. I was actually holding myself back. Yes, we need to work and earn a paycheck to be able to live, but to the extent where I’m letting it consume me in a way where my health becomes affected, my relationships are affected - I started to step back to take an eagle’s eye view of my life and asked myself:
“Am I really thriving and what does thriving actually mean?”
“Am I truly happy?”
“Am I actually using the gifts I have been given and able to love others well through those gifts?”
“Is this all worth it? The long days, the hours spent in spreadsheets and forms, in constant meetings, on webinars, etc.?”
I started pondering who I am outside of my work and ended up creating a list, a definition of sorts of myself. Listing out the qualities and characteristics that are a part of who I am, but maybe I haven’t fully tapped into yet. Contemplating this list - this definition of how I see myself, I realized I haven’t actually taken the time to step into and discover these areas about myself that bring me true joy.
Hence, where Discover Your Journey came into being. I’ve always had a love for travel, photography, and books. Coming back from trips, I would share photos with family and friends and they would encourage me to do something more with my photos. I brushed it off for years and never did anything with them, letting my work or other priorities at the time get in the way, or just not thinking my photos were actually “good enough” to post anywhere. Traveling over the last couple of years got me thinking more about this. I would come back and begin editing some photos, but once again, letting all the day to day overshadow this area that I really love and that I wanted to share with others.
Even the books I read (which to make time to read books was a challenge - let’s be real!), I found that after the busyness of work, it was a way for me to rest, to escape to new periods and lands even when I couldn’t physically travel myself due to finances, time, work, etc. I would find myself bringing up these books in various conversations and again, those in my surrounding community mentioned starting a blog or book club to highlight some of these books that have been so meaningful to me and FUN (who else needs some more fun in their life besides me?!).
In closing, my heart is that you enjoy the galleries of photos and reviews posted on this site, and that this site inspires you and leads you to new discoveries and adventures.
So, dear discoverer, as you embark on these quests, I challenge you - “Who or what are you becoming?”
Let’s see what you discover as you begin this journey and the adventures that await you along the way.
Much Love,
