"Life's too short for the wrong job"

I've just seen this image from a publicity campaign for Jobsintown.de with the slogan "Life's too short for the wrong job" in here. I've seen it before, many times. I love it. I've even sent an image to a friend, and I have always defended that, but... now... somehow... it hit me. 

I love light. I think I've made that clear long time ago. There's something about lighting design that I feel really happy working with it. And I mean lighting design, not just formulas that have been applied to every product that gets to the office. I love talking about light, watching stuff... I feel passion. I become excited, my eyes become brighter... for some moments, it's even better than being in love with someone. But, I'm afraid I should leave this soon. 

Last December was the last time I was working in an office. December 9 the last day. I've been trying to be on my own since then. First I got really sad, then I thought now or never, things have been fluctuating between those two. 

In July I decided it was too much, and I was running out of money, so if nothing happened, I would be searching a job in September, even though I wouldn't want to be in an office for more than 8 hours a day, not being able to have a bit of daylight, doing projects I don't like, from people who don't care, and earning too little a month (average for this is around 750USD per month). 

I broke the ligaments of my right ankle, so I was not able to apply for any job until I could walk again. I had a meeting and I got excited and thought it was fantastic, but I wasn't called back after telling them how much I would charge. 

Then I got lucky and got an pass to a workshop and a series of conferences, everything about light, taking place in a city near mine. I am so excited about going. So, so excited. I haven't been in contact with the lighting world for so long (just my own individual world and talking with friends from KTH, but it's not the same as before). I'm excited about it, but it has also become a bit of a problem as I need money for the hotel and meals and I have not enough. I could ask my parents, but... why do I have to ask my parents for money? 

And again, with this in mind, I've decided again to seel my life for 750 USD per month, sell my dreams, my ideas, my ideals. Begin looking for a job on November, when all this is done, if I don't get something big enough before. It will always exist this "if", as I wouldn't want to deny my dream a last chance. With this decision taken, I come home and decide to stumble a bit, and find this image that makes me think again.

Should I keep pursuing my dream, not caring about my economical future? or should I look for a job selling myself for some money? Is life really too short for the wrong job?

A bit of a mess

From time to time, I tell myself I'll begin writting frequently. I'll write about lighting and things I find interesting. The problem is... well, there are in fact two problems: lack of motivation and lack of words. Lack of motivation because I find so many stuff in the net that looks so interesting and I set up by posting those interesting things on my fb wall. (Orquidea Vara Iluminación). I think that if I post something in my blog, it should be something more than images or info, something that would make this mine, and the only thing I feel mine are my thoughts, though many are from others, I think I can arrange them in my own singular way.

As the tittle suggests, my life is a bit of a mess right now, but I think it usually is, and there's not much wrong with it. There are just few things of which I am certain. I love ligth, and I love to work with light, going t meetings, thinking in projects, reading about it, and thinking every time in something more about light, like a possible new luminaire I'll make when I've got some money, or how wonderfull/terrible a project is, and learn from everything I see. I love light, and that's one of the few certainties I have.

My life is a bit of a mess. I'm not so self confident as for selling myself as a brand perfectly well so job isn't going as well as I thought. Heart's not perfect either, but I don't see my life as a chick flick. And the good news is that I'll be able to walk again soon (I hurt my foot like a month and a half ago), and my family is with me, no matter if I'm too annoying and invasive, or I just can't move.

I can't complain about my life. It's just... a bit of a mess and I wish I knew now to untangle it.

Do you remember Disney's Alice in Wonderland? I think I kind of feel like her right now. I'm not saying that I want to go to a tea party, drink from bottles I don't know the content or follow a rabbit. I feel as lost as she does on some point in the movie, where she is following a path that is suddenly erased, and she can't go back either. That moment, that specific moment, before she meets the flowers, I feel that way. I don't know where to go, or which path to follow, I can't even see a path anymore nor go back my steps, but I know I don't want to be here, I know I want to be somewhere else, and I know where. I just... don't know how to get there.

I'll figure everything out soon. I just need to get out. This non walking period in which my world has been significatively reduced is messing up with my mind. I need to go for a walk. Maybe in a month.

Time for choosing

It's time for choosing here in Mexico. A year for choices. And I am not talking just about my life, choosing whether to stick to my dream and try to have a lighting design office of my own and light up places for people, improving their environment and also their emotions, the way they make their daily activities, their health... make a change in their lives ( I know, it's a huge dream, almost unreachable, but it's my dream) or choosing to get into any office to perform a job as... well... as anything they ask me to be, for a monthly payment and promisses of... well, it doesn't matter, they always make you promisses, even if those are not accomplised.

This is a year of choices in Mexico, political choices, social movements, confrontations, demands... Choose your candidate, choose your party, choose to vote, choose to believe what they are saying, choose to watch TV and believe TV, choose to believe FB and the little blue bird, choose to be part of it, choose to support it, choose to be against it, choose not to care...choose, choose, choose. Lots of things to choose.

Right now I've chosen to wish. On June 1 I'll make a choise in a poll, but today... today I choose to dream. I want to dream a better future for my country, so I'll wish... stuff. I'll write down, as in a wish list the things I would like for my country, a list of things I think  would help.

1. Let's pay more attention to the countryside. Let's pay more attention to farmers and gain the control of our lands and food again. There are guys in universities that study agriculture, let them help! Let's learn again the old lessons we have forgotten, be organic, produce more, produce in a healthy way, and may the earnings of these products be for the farmers who spend their days taking care of the land and all their products.
2. Let's make that a fair payment. Not just for farmers, but for everyone. How can a salesperson earn much more than the creator of the piece? How can a waitress earn more than an engineer who spent years studying and spends more than 8 hours in the office? How can a cleaning lady survive with what she is paid?
3. Talking about living, let's improve the quality of living for everyone. Good appartments or houses, reasonable prices, good living conditions. Better design, better problem solving and not just more money for the investors. Regulations and checking those regulations to be accomplished.
4. Good food. Encourage people to eat well, and rise the taxes to all those things that may cause sickness. Cigarrettes, alcohol, junk food, even chains of junk food.
5. Encourage development in the country. There are fantastic brains that lack support. Researchers, inventors, designers, anything that are not supported, that just don't fit in the box. Support them!!!!
6. Improve our roads. Both for cards and pedestrians and decent and affordable places for people to live in.
7. Take care of garbage. Recycle! Take care of garbage! All kind of garbage. Separation into all the different categories available, incluiding making compost, using kitchen oil for making fuel, and dog crap as fertilizer.
8. People needs to rest. Fantastic the tourism campaigns, but they don't work if people is all stressed up and has no time to stop working! Let's have 2 1/2 days off in a row so one ca discover your own country!
9. Let's improve education. Please! improve the quality of the education and don't let everyone pass just because. People has to learn how to think, not just data.
10. Better use of our natural resources, green technologies, better design...all that stuff.

Those are the things I wish for Mexico.

Maybe 1 day... you never know.