Finding your voice

We all have something special about us that sets us apart from everyone else and makes us wonderfully individual. We all have a voice. This ‘voice’ is your gift, your outlet, your God-given medium of expression; it is the unique talent we were each born with. Perhaps you communicate best through writing, others through singing, some of us are painters, photographers, dancers, directors, teachers, explorers and so on and so on. We are all gifted in one way or another. Life’s greatest challenge is to find that gift, the voice of your soul, and to learn how to use it.

The problem is that so many of us are out of touch with ourselves and lost in the day-to-day of our busy lives that we don’t know or fully realise what our gifts are. And for many people, even if they do know what their gifts are, they’re too afraid to use them. They aren’t practical and how could one ever really support themselves with such a talent? So, sadly, for countless people, their gifts have been repressed or cast aside, by a need for financial security and to do what is otherwise expected of them in the eyes of society. We need to support our families, pay our mortgages, fund university. Our childhood dreams of one day becoming a comedian, rock star or astronaut, are cast aside for more practical and reliable professions, with less competition and a guaranteed paycheck. And countless dreams remain exactly that; just dreams. Lost, unused voices.

It’s fascinating to me how we as a society are so quick to tell little kids they can be anything they want to be, yet none of us seem to listen to our own advice. I think something that most people don’t realise is that it is our life’s purpose to figure out what our gift is, and to use it.

For whatever reason, discovering our true purpose in today’s society has largely lost it’s way. The vast majority of us in the Western World plod along, not really thinking about what makes us feel excited or passionate. We get up, we go through the motions and do work that pays the bills. We get ourselves to the office and to social gatherings, go through all of our daily obligations, often times (if not most of the time) rarely pausing to ask if we feel fulfilled or passionate.

It is part of my personality that I will never be someone who can just fit into the status quo and not question everything about it. In high school I remember countless screaming fights with my parents – the immense pressure to choose a university, meet with university counsellors, take the right right classes and do the right after school activities. While my friends were all buckled down studying and trying to please their parents, I rebelled to the greatest extremes possible. I hated that time with intensity.

I managed to get them off my back by nearly getting myself thrown out of school (several times) my senior year and ultimately won the battle to take a gap year. I got as far away from it all as I possibly could, and I moved to Africa. I spent a year in Uganda making lots of long distance calls, listening to my friends who had mostly gone off to their different universities around the world and hearing their tales of their first year of university, while I told them about safaris, sleeping in mud huts in the jungle, boat parties on Lake Victoria and malaria tablets. I had absolutely no desire to follow suit and start university the following year, but I knew that my gap year was just that, a one-year gap in my dragging education. Why couldn’t I just be done with it already?!?!

I ultimately managed to get myself through university, though it took a lot longer than anyone on a traditional 3-year UK track or 4-year US track. I took about 6 years and transferred universities 3 times with extra courses being taken at 2 different colleges in between the transfers. I spent the first 2.5 years studying photography in the UK (of which by far the best and most educational part for me was the 6-week long exchange I did in Thailand  ) and the subsequent 3.5 years in California, finishing, finally, with a degree in English Literature from UCLA.

None of these changes were because I performed poorly – in fact quite the opposite. I was always in the top 10% of my university classes. I simply had little to no interest in the end result – the degree. The golden ticket so prized by society, meant little or nothing to me. University was never a choice of mine and to this day, I question if any of the time I spent there was worth it. I’ve never once used my degree for anything, and I genuinely believe life and work experience is far more valuable than any university degree.

My career path since graduating from university just under 10 years ago has been a similar track record to my time in university. I’ve done well in every industry I’ve worked in (and there have been a lot), networked like hell, been well-liked by my peers, colleagues and my superiors (most of them anyway…). But there has been a constant restlessness in me that cannot be satiated. Every new job I attempt, I try to convince myself might be ‘the one’. It’s not.

When this restlessness takes over, it’s something I know all too well. It is something I cannot ignore…and I know it’s because I’m still not using my voice as it was intended for me to. This doesn’t mean I’ve figured out completely how or what it is that I’m supposed to be doing, but I think I’m getting closer. I’m learning that I have to live my passions. And I’ve learned I have to stop trying to please others. This is my journey and no one else’s.

Some of us are more lucky though, and and are blessed with always having known their gift. To those of you who have managed to fine tune and hone your talents and use them on a daily basis, I salute you. It is a rare and special thing, truly, to know your gift and use it fearlessly – I aspire to be more like you.

Watching my little brother now navigate through his own career frustrations as a reasonably new university graduate has been an added motivation for me to write this. Him and I both have experienced the confusion and societal and familial pressures to conform and try to buckle down and get ‘normal’ jobs. But one thing that I know is true about both myself and about my brother – is that is just not us. So, as hard as it is, I want to encourage both myself and all those feeling these frustrations, to try and shake off the fear. Start getting happy, however that may be. I heard a beautiful quote by Thom Knoles the other day that deeply resonated with me, “Start showing the world what it is that’s attractive about being you.”

Do what you need to do, tap back into the things that brought you joy when you were a child. Remember your dreams and reawaken your sleeping inner voices. In the beautifully put words of Brené Brown, “Creativity is the way I share my soul with the world.” Find happiness where it is INSIDE OF YOU. Your voice, your gift, your medium, and shine it into the world. In my personal experience thus far, you can ignore your gift, but it will keep reminding you it’s there…

Your job is to identify your gift. It’s that simple. Find it, and fucking use it. 

Like a relationship, finding your gift, and learning to use it is not always easy. But life’s not supposed to be easy. In fact, like a relationship, it will probably be incredibly hard a lot of the time. It will require you to step outside of your comfort zone, be vulnerable, open your heart and be prepared for rejection and failure, and to make tremendous sacrifices. Thomas Edison tried more than 1,000 times before he succeeded in making a light bulb that worked. It will be hard and exhausting, but like a relationship, in a true loving harmonious relationship, the best kind – it will be worth it in the end.

And what relationship could be more important than the one you have with yourself?