Blogtember Day 4: Passion

What are you passionate about?  It's a question some people struggle with for the entire life. I on the other hand sometimes struggle to choose just one (although if I had to pick #1 would be camp). All of my passions are intertwined though, together they build to guide and direct me through life. 

Camp is my ultimate passion in life. I love the atmosphere, the community, the tradition. I truly believe that there are two kinds of people in the world: Camp People and Non-Camp People. It shaped me in unfathomable ways into the person I am today and the person I will be 10 years from now. 

Disability Awareness/Inclusion. I have had the privilege of meeting and befriending so many smart, funny, happy and kind people who identify as having a disability. And it frustrates me that so many people in this world are overlooked because others don't take the time to communicate with them. There's a perception that people with disabilities need a lot of help. The reality is we all need a lot of help and just because someone uses a wheelchair or needs extra time to complete a task doesn't mean they need your sympathy. People are people and the world would be a much better place if everyone would treat each other with more kindness, respect and understanding. 

3E Love

Food. It breaks my heart that there are so many people have no idea where there next meal is coming from. And that the options they have are pre-packaged and almost void of nutritional value. Food education should be more of a focus in school and people shouldn't have to choose between buying 10 bags of chips or 1 bunch of carrots. On a more personal level I love cooking and baking and being able to provide healthy and tasty foods for the people around me. 

Children/Youth. It sounds lame but in all seriousness children/youth are the future. If they grow up surrounded by loving and supportive people and have their basic needs met (nutritious food, safe home etc.) then the world will become a better place. If children/youth don't have access to those things then bad things happen. I love camp and other extra-curriculour activities because it provides children/youth with so many opportunities to explore and grow in a safe, supportive environment.

Faith. I'm not sure how to expand on this or put it into words. My faith and trust in Good is crucial to my life and impacts my choices and interests.

Honourable mentions go to photography, writing, memory keeping, family and friends.

Love What You Do

Hello there blogging world. I promise I haven't forgotten about you, it's just been a crazy few days (and the crazy shows no signs of stopping). I purposely took the weekend off from blogging (Saturday & Sundays posts were scheduled) and avoided technology as much as possible. Which was lovely. Monday I didn't really have anything to post about so I continued on with my limited screen time. Yesterday I was out for most of the day and I had more crazy going on so I let the day slip by. I haven't even been reading blogs (that's next on my list for today).

First on my list is to link up with Hayley & Lauren for this week's The Girl Between The Lines. This week people are sharing "The best piece of advance that anyone ever gave you." I am really looking forward to reading through everyones advice. Unlike the last few weeks where I've really struggled to come up with an answer for the prompt this one I knew right away.

Now, Steve Jobs didn't come pass along this knowledge to me personally, it's something I've always been a firm believer in. Steve just put it into better words and shared it with the masses and it sums up the reason why I think it's so important to do what you love. 

Career Advice

I'm keeping things simple for today's Blog Every Day in May Challenge. My advice is this:

Figure out what you love and then figure out a way to make money doing it.

It makes me so sad (and annoyed/frustrated) when I hear people (especially people around my age) say things like "I guess I'll do education and be a teacher, I don't know what else to do with an English degree" or "I don't really like engineering, but I'm going to make a lot of money." and the one that makes me cringe the most, "I really wanted to study art, but there's no jobs with that and my parents wouldn't let me, so I'm going to be a nurse because I'll be guaranteed a job out of university." I realize that not everybody knows exactly what they want to do and interests might change along the way. But the reality is that in this day and age your career is a big part of who you are, you're going to be doing it for a while. Why spend all that time doing something you don't like? 

You might not make a ton of money doing what you love (I am pretty confident I will not achieve millionaire status working at camp), but as long as you live within your means (something our society is pretty awful at) why not spend your life doing what you love? There are so many options out there that with a little bit of creative thinking and hard work I truly believe that everybody can find a job that they love.

Who Would You Be?

 If you couldn't answer with your job, how would you answer the question, 'what do you do'?

 I do lots of things...drink too much caffeine, watch too much Reality TV, get too attached to "characters" on said Reality TV shows. I hang out with a fantastic and adorable bunch of 9 year olds once a week, I babysit, nap, text, eat, craft, walk, yoga...but to me those are all interests and hobbies (and bad habits). My passion is camp, yes it's my job, but really is what I love.

I am incredibly thankful that I am able to work at something I love. And that work rarely feels like work. Maybe that's an exaggeration because I assure you that last summer when the director and I had to get up every hour during the night to do laundry because the dryers broke and we didn't have a laundry attendant yet, felt like work.

And right now when I just got an email that we still haven't found a cook, it looks like a counsellor is going to quit before he starts, another counsellor is MIA, as is the assistant nurse, they were both hired but haven't made any effort to get their contracts signed or reply to e-mails and we're moving to camp in 2 weeks (i.e. 2 hours away from the main office) which makes hiring and other office work difficult.

But it's the kind of chaos I enjoy, and afterwards it makes for great stories (which all of my real life friends are tired of hearing. In university I did one work work term that wasn't camp or working with kids and it was 4 months of what I imagine hell to be like. I worked in the university gym and organized intramurals for students, it was almost 2 years ago now and I still can't talk about it without getting angry and yelling.

Even though I could answer "what do you do?" without referencing my job, it wouldn't be a very accurate or truthful answer. Even when I'm not working I'm reading up on what other camps are doing, searching Pinterest for fun craft ideas or just talking about camp. Camp is a huge part of who I am and it's what I love to do!

Food for Thought

Today's Every Day in May Challenge topic is favourite quotes!

I love quotes, there's just something about the perfect words strung together to form something bigger that makes me really happy! 

I have so many favourites, but for the sake of just choosing one I've chosen the one below.

I've always been a really big believer that "God is in the details" and I always make a point when I'm doing children/youth ministry to teach that not only is God BIG, but He is also in all of the little things too. I think this quote does a good job of pointing out all the details and the vastness.

I Have Called You By Name

The past couple of weeks have been pretty rough. It wasn't any one particular life altering event, just a combination of little jabs that had me feeling pretty down about life.

I won't bore anyone with the details of several lead up stories but to summarize I was feeling pretty angry and upset with circumstances that I know are out of my control. The climax of the whole thing was when a lovely lately who happened to be sitting next to me during a course I was taking for camp struck up this conversation with me.

• Lovely Lady (LL): I find this so interesting! Have you done this course before?
• Me: No, I'm familiar with a lot of the material though because of my job. 
• LL: Oh, what do you do?
• Me: I'm an assistant camp director at *camp*
• LL: And you do that year round?
• Me: Right now it's seasonal and during the rest of the year I kinda volunteer and work on planning the next summer. I have a degree in Recreation and Religious Studies so I plan to work in Camp Ministry full time. 
• LL: Oh...well that doesn't sound like a very good way to make a living.

...Thanks for your opinion, person who I just met three hours ago that knows absolutely nothing about my life. 

I don't know why that conversation stuck with me, but a few days later I was still thinking about it and a million other things that were floating around in my head. And then I came across this blog post by Beth Moore. And I felt better instantly.

Because even though life isn't unfolding the way I planned everything is happening for a reason and I am SO SO SO SO SO blessed and lucky and thankful that I do know exactly what I want to do. I love camp. It's as plain and simple as that. The truth is some people will never find that thing that they love, or they'll find it "too late" (whatever that means). I've known from the time I was 12 that camp was my favourite thing in the whole entire world. When I figured out I could make that my job; it was a good day.

The point of this whole ramble is that things are looking up. The snow is finally starting to disappear and the sky is more blue than grey. Summer is only 6 weeks away.

It's all going to be okay.