I too have pondered why I do the things I do and for the most part I tell myself it is for the greater good of all, it is in some way to make the world a better place. This is only part of the truth. The part I normally ignore is that each day molds me into something new. Whether for the better or the worse remains to be seen. I hope it is for the better, I like to think it is for the better but one day down the road I may find that my current experiences have made me worse of a person. I can only hope that I do indeed be the better person that I wish to be.

I live each day knowing that it is a stepping stone to the future. What i learn today could get me to where i want to be later in life. So on those days when i wake up and ask myself “What is the point?” I already have an answer, i just have to remind myself of it and look forward to where a new day will take me.

Some things I do in my life, I don’t question. I get a strong urge, a strong pull, and even if it makes zero sense, I do it. Beautiful and amazing things have come of it.

Other things, I question. I question thoroughly. And a lot of times, I don’t find answers. Some, I know the answers but wish I didn’t. There are things I WANT to do that I can’t. It’s not a situation of not feeling I have the power, it’s a matter of life situation. I don’t have the freedom I wish I did. This is ironic because I’m told repeatedly that the world is wide open to me because I don’t technically have any obligations other than my studies, but there are other elements to it that lead me to a certain path I cannot shake. I am, however, hoping that I can change this by doing the things I’d really like to do on the side, and hoping those things lead me to a better place.

This is kind of cryptic. A lot of the things I have on my mind, I don’t actually want to talk about because I feel trapped and the more I talk about them, the more hopeless I feel.

y do i do wt i do..? well, i got few wrinkle on my forehead w1st time i read this, well, my 1st attemp to replying to ur blog is a success!! yay! now im feeling more meaningfull to chek ur blog many times per day to c if there any reply, haha, ya..i hv nothing to do…
ok , y do i do wt i do..? i used to do wt ppl told me to do, but as much as i enjoyed “helping them satisfy themselves”,bit by bit, it makes me thinking,wt abt me? this is my life to run,not them.My family used to urge n told me to take certain course for my diploa,n at the time, im all confused n myb to young to make my own decision,i jst follow, n the result..? 2 failed paper on my very 1st semester, i cn feel like something craving outa my skin saying “i hate this, i dont wanna learn this, y do i even here, this isnt me wt im pictured in my future”, but as always, ppl r scared..scared of “what if” factor.Tell me, how many of u doing wt u imagine as u little kid..?remember while were in kindergarten, when teachers ask us ‘ when u grow up,wt u wanna b?’ i used to answeri wanna b a doctor, myb a vet, but im too scared to take risk, too scared to say no, myb parent’s decision r the best, but myb thts also isnt what i want?
Thnk GOd, i finally step up, grown up, n made my own decision of wt i really wanna do, i wanna b a chef, n im rolling to it, im now taking my degree in culinary art,my choice(eventhough my family told me to continue in Business section)..so again, y do i do wt i do today..? The answer is quiete SIMPLE,…BECAUSE THATS WHAT I WANT!

Why do what I do? Well, I don’t know what I am doing now … I want to help friends, the people I love.
My friends always tell me I’m too good. Because I don’t want to hurt anybody, even when they hurt me.
I feel really frustrated when people that I loved hurt me, but I can’t be “bad” with them.
I really like the work that you are doing here in your blog,you’re lovely.
When I see people like you or like other good persons here, I don’t know why I’m feeling so strange for be a good person that I don’t want bad things for anybody.. I don’t know if you’re understanding me…
I want to believe in my dreams, to be a great photographer and continue help people that I love. Now I’m designing the shirt for the official fan club Veronica Romeo and I’m very happy for that.
I hate people that judge me for my interesting, every people in that world have different interestings and I love to learn about them.. I don’t want to waste time hurting people for that.

I think you may have found the “strap-Line” for your site, or maybe even the name of David H’s musical!

Extend the intimacy!

That could really work. We should get some T-shirts made.

So, to the point of the blog. I tend not to ask myself too many questions; I guess if I’m honest with myself, I do this because I don’t want to know what the answers would be. However, if I were to answer your question from a personality point of view, I would have to say that I am the way I am because; I didn’t like what I was.
At the time life was great, as far as I knew, everything was the way it was supposed to be. It wasn’t until I saw the hatred in the eyes of someone who should only ever look on you with love, did I finally realise that something was wrong within me. I say realise, it wasn’t like the Eureka moments in the movies or cartoons, there was no light bulb flashing above my head! Like most people do, I went through certain stages before realising that I was the problem. I blamed my parents, I blamed my employer, (which is why I got fired!) and then I began to feel sorry for myself as the life I knew began to crumble around me. It took several years of unemployment, homelessness and the help of some exceptional people before I finally had the courage to accept the responsibility for my actions, and it was only after doing this did my life begin to turn around.

From the point of view of my job, I do what I do because hopefully it will allow the genius’s I work with, to work to the best of their ability. I have the power to change my own life, but what the people I work with do, has the power to change the world!

I must say, this site is great. I save a fortune on therapy with these daily blogs.

Friday

I didn’t know that people came around proposing to Allison. That’s.. actually, that makes sense. Some people really want that, and have views of what a person is like without actually knowing them. I doubt any of us know much about the real Allison, because of the nature of the internet and the need for consideration of how the public would perceive certain thoughts, feelings, statements, etc.

I like the sentiment of learning and growth, though. Plenty of spiritual bents toward that on Facebook that I haven’t been active in for months.

why do I do what I do? (creative design)

I want to share my creativity and mind with the world. I want to inspire people the way I feel inspired by what I love.

New Zealand is a beautiful country. I’ve never been there but after looking at scenic photography, I guess I have a new goal to achieve!

I know what you mean about reading the other comments Jendi, I like to read them all and if possivle even visit the individual sites of those that post if only to better understand my fellow commenter’s.

I had a funny feeling when I first visited this site a year ago that something good was going to come out of it.

I’d like to think that I’ve made a couple of new friends, despite never actually meeting them, and if that is all they I get out of this site then it was time well spent in my opinion!

I don’t know about everybody else, but I can’t wait to see what becomes of this community.

Friday

I’ts not the “why” that motivates me, but the “what”.

Do we really have to have a reason for doing anything in our lives?
My acts would mean less if my reasons were lame?
Even if the results (for the others) were the same.

I may find a reasonable explanation for all my acts, stick with my beliefs, but in the end it’s just gonna be a way mind finds to tell me that anything I’m doing now is worth it. It’s a cheering thing. It’s my confort zone.
It’s gonna be like put a big label on my life. A label that is going to limit me because anything beyond it will be out of my predicted zone. And I would end up like a deaf, that knows that can’t hear the song,but also will not allow me to feel the rythm.

So the answer to your question: “Why are you doing the things you are doing in your life?”

Its because, at that moment, it’s seem to be the right thing to do. Or because it made the perfect sense at the occasion.

We all have “ups and downs”. We learn new things and, thank heavens, we change opinions. So, we are in a constant mutation. The “why’s” changes, but the “what’s” stays in the memory.

hola everyone,

i’ve wanted to be a dancer since i can remember. i went to a top school and became -according to some people-, a dancer.

but somewhere along the way i questioned why i danced.

the answers i found made me want to quit. so i have. at 22, i’m going back to uni, starting over, reading psychology. i want to influence people, and be there for them at times when they are sure there is no hope, no light. i want to be there for them at times of despair and suffering, to tell them there is light, and hope, as once someone did for me. i guess it’s a way of giving back, somehow.

but not every day is like that.

some days, i just exist, or do what i need to do to get by. and perhaps that’s fine too.

questioning is great when it prompts you into action. if you are not pleased with the aswers, maybe ask a different question.

Why?

I think that I do distract myself…I stay busy with getting to work, whats going on when I get there, what are my friends/family doing….how can I make their lives easier….did I turn off the T.V…..man I have to stop at the grocery store…..do I need gas…..it’s this persons birthday, gotta get a gift…etc….. I focus my energy on so many different things that I can’t effectively focus on anything. It distracts me from asking…. WHY? Is it because I am told that these are the things in life that are important, the media and everyone else puts so much stock in these things…..How much money you have, how many ‘things’ a person has, what kind of clothes do you wear… What kind of job do you have? I think about these things to distract myself from that fact that my life is not what I want it to be. So it is better to not think about it. What I want is such a far cry from what I have, and I think that is true for everyone..we are all searching to fill this void or gap that we have to fill. So I fill it with non-important babble.

One consideration in getting people make return visits is the moderation of the posts. Some take days before they post and when new blog topics are created almost every day, the comments being moderated don’t get posted for the general public until after the bulk of the readers have moved on to the next blog topic. Also, when they are moderated, they appear in order of when they were first posted … which is buried within the posts that appeared immediately after being submitted meaning that there is even more chance that the post won’t be read. People who take the trouble to comment generally want their comment to be posted.

Jendi–I’ve always wanted to go to New Zealand. One of my cousins did her student teaching there and brought back some AMAZING photos. So gorgeous.

Anyway, back to the blog. To me, this blog changed when Allison started posting on a daily basis. In turn, we started making this a part of our daily lives. It became personal and we started talking to each other, building our own little community. A place where we can be who we are without any biases or pre-conceived notions. I like sitting at my desk and talking to someone in Wales (a place to be honest, I don’t know much about except for a Craig Ferguson movie I saw a long time ago) California, Peru, Canada etc. I know I say this a lot but I love the diversity, maybe because I grew up in such a small town.

Maybe we’re all trying to find our purpose in life. That’s why we do what we do. It seams like everyone is searching for a reason for it all to matter. We want our lives to matter. We want to make a difference. I love my job, but that’s not my purpose in life. My faith, that’s my anchor. Working with the high school kids at my church allows me to make a difference. It takes my focus off me and on to something bigger.

On a side note (I love tangents) Lexie posted a song from Point of Grace the other day that I just love called “How you live” its one of my favorites. Actually, I love that whole cd. Ooh, maybe we could do some kind of Q & A of favorite cds, artists, authors etc. What do you think?

I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for you because you reach out to people, you are really making a difference in people’s lives.. You are a role model and your endeavors to make the world a better place are inspiring.

Why am I doing the things I am doing in my life?

I would like to share this with you:
When I was little, I used to say to my mom “when I’m older I want to get a good job, make a difference, do something meaningful, be good to people and animals. I want to live in an apartment close to my family. I am going to enjoy reading and writing, learning foreign languages, listening to music, watching TV, going for a walk, going shopping, going to the movies etc. And, I would like to have some English speaking friends living in the USA and Canada. I would love to visit the USA and Canada and visit my friends.”
I told my mom this countless times. I never talked about getting married or having children.

And guess what?…

I have a good job (Management Assistant), I rent an apartment only minutes away from my family, I read, write, listen to music, watch TV, go see movies ….and I am about to travel to Canada, for the very first time, all by myself!
AMO has given me the opportunity to become friends with amazing women (living overseas). And to top it all… I am going to meet some of them in Vancouver.

Can you believe it?!

This keeps me positive, motivated and feeling great.
And, it has empowered me to ‘live’ life and to pursue my dreams: make the change to a healthy lifestyle (and lose weight) and participate in creating awareness to build humanity.

I have come a long way. I am happy, grateful for life and for all the people who have helped and inspired me.
I want to help girls and women to open up and not be embarrassed to be themselves, make them understand that they can believe in themselves, stay true to themselves, pursue their dreams and show what they are made of because the strength is within themselves. I never dreamed I could or would feel as strong and happy as I do today and that I would travel on my own and have ‘real ‘ friends living overseas. It was only in my dreams and today, it comes true. I want other girls and women to experience this too and encourage them to savor life and live joyfully.

I am just an ordinary woman, it might never be possible but, in the meantime, I’m kind of trying to do this by being a good human being and by writing positive, encouraging or pick-me-up comments.

It is the little things what makes life worth living. Life is beautiful, sometimes difficult but life is definitely beautiful.
To me, ‘giving’ is equal to ‘happiness’ and it doesn’t take much effort,.
When you give (a smile, kindness, understanding, compassion, friendship, love, support, solace, guidance,…), you receive so much in return. We can help make each other happy and become good human beings.

I feel as if my journey has only begun and I am looking forward to an amazing future of opening up my heart, reaching out, helping others and of fulfilling my goals and realizing my dreams.
I have committed myself never to turn my back to life and never give up on people.:-)

I was thinking ………..
We are all here, thinking, planning, worrying, achieving things and goals we want for so long, to realize that the life is, nothing more nothing less, like a commodatum system.
No matter how hard we become attached with things and people, in the end, we are not going to be able to take them with us after leaving for good ………..
At least, I’m grateful for God being an excellent landlord.
So…….. I ‘m going enjoy and celebrate the gift of life while I still have it.
Gonna make new interistings friends, gonna love my family, gonna learn to apologize, gonna learn to say no, gonna make a lot of mistakes and learn with them, gonna get dirty and gonna get clean, but gonna also learn how to live as a free spirit and don’t forget to thank every single day for all I have. And that include all of you.

Thank you all!!!

I basically try to NOT think about why I do what I do. When you don’t have acceptable alternatives, imagining what you want to do will only add a layer of disappointment to the daily grind.

My wife watched a program once and said afterwards that the conditions I worked under fit every description of a sweat shop. Her solution was to get a steady, continuous income outside of my profession that would give me the freedom to quit working when I chose to and to not be in a position where I had to settle for what was offered to me or nothing. Since my credit was perfect and lenders were bending over backwards trying to get me to borrow money from them, my wife thought we should invest in rental properties. I knew I wasn’t the kind of person to ever collect on a debt or put people on the street if they put my financial future in jeopardy by not paying the rent. My wife assured me that she WAS that kind of person. So it fell to her to manage the properties we purchased. She was already physically disabled at that point, but as time went on, it became impossible for her to manage the properties.

When I was offered a job that was some distance away from where we lived, I moved to be closer to work. We had already been having trouble with renters abusing the properties and non-payment and the city allowing the renters to get away with anything. Now we were further away and it was open season. Six of eight rental properties got trashed within the first year that we moved. And, although I had never had as much as a broken bone until that point in my life, I had 3 surgeries that year. We looked at going bankrupt, but because our debt wasn’t credit card related, we were told that we wouldn’t even be allowed to keep our own home and could have as much as $200,000.00 in mortgage debt to re-pay after bankruptcy. A further complication was that my parents had moved into my duplex with me and they too would be out of a place to live if I went bankrupt. So we found a way to pay avoid bankruptcy – found buyers for 2 houses at a $50,000.00 loss by selling under market value. The interest on our loans went up and my credit rating was ruined. In the meantime, the company where I worked spent all their money on speculation that didn’t pay off so I was left without a job or severance. I am the worker horse that was always kept in the background and for 15 years, very few people that I designed products for even knew I existed. The one that did asked me to work at his company for a month as a self-employed contractor at half what my normal billing rate had been. They have found it impossible to do without my services, but refuse to hire someone as old as me (even though telling me that broke the law). So I have been here for almost 2.5 years on an hour by hour basis unable to relocate closer because any hour could be my last. In one case I completed in 6 hours a job that outside contractors were unable to do at all after assigning 2 men to work 3 weeks on it. The unsuccessful company got paid $23,000.00 for their efforts. I got paid for a straight 6 hours. What I just said sounds like so much BS … and employers who never have worked with me or known that it was me responsible for designing their product would not believe what I am capable of. I have tried finding other work. I have had 2 interviews in the 2.5 years. I have no benefits unless I pay for them myself. If I am let go, I do not qualify for unemployment. I do not get paid days off or sick leave. I can not afford to sell the rentals even if anyone wanted to buy them. Homes in the area where my rentals are located have dropped to about $10,000.00 for a 4 bedroom home … and people aren’t buying at that price! Potential investors have learned that landlords in Canton, Ohio do not have the court’s backing in collecting rent or recovering damages. So I try to enjoy what I do and know I can continue to pay off debt and support my family as long as I can keep getting up in the morning and doing at least twice the work of anyone else earning what I do. The getting up is the hard part. Losing two hours a day that I used to spend writing to the daily commute is hard. Keeping all the records and filling out all the required business paperwork to be self-employed and paying all the additional taxes — hard. Being more productive than the average engineer – a piece of cake.

I do what I do because it is my duty in life to do so. For now (as I do not know my future obviously) my duty is my family friends and self, in that order. It is my duty to honor, love, and protect them. It is also my duty to honor, love, and protect myself.

I find that I’m not an ambitious man in the regular sense. I do not have a position marked out for me on some office door in some skyscraper. I merely wish to fufill my duty and be happy with everything else. I like to listen rather than do so that I can not only learn important lesseons from the stories of others, but so that I can offer my own advise as taken from the view of the objective outsider, which is one of the most lacking points of view one can find on hand. Its harder to find an objective view than a subjective view after all.

I’m still gonna pimp sharecrow. I really think you commentating on movies (with your friends) would be both insightful and entertaining, and sure to win over some people while giving spotlight to the niche of amature MST3King.

The people on this site are marvelous!

I do what I do, job-wise, because I want to survive, and, I want to survive because, somehow (this, I feel, has to do with God’s love), there is, within, the desire to be of use, of help to others.

Being of real help to others isn’t a badge of honor, though there can be temptation to look at it that way. Instead, being useful is a most precious gift.

When my mother was dying, she would cry, at times, because she was bedridden and couldn’t help. She cried one time, because she could no longer help with washing the dishes, but she wasn’t crying because she loved doing dishes (what a horrible thought!). It was the loss of her ability to help out, to be a part of the family in that way.

That made me think about the concept of usefulness and of how we see ourselves in the light of that concept. I told her that we were in her situation together. I was being the caregiver, but she was providing me my task of being helpful. Her sickness and weakness were, at that time, answering my need to be of use, but what of her? She had been losing her physical abilities over a little more than a decade, and it had been a slow but steady loss, rheumatoid arthritis, emphysema and all the complications that go with them.

So, what about being useful? When we near the end of our lives, do we say, “I helped these people, and those? Maybe so, but I think, more likely, we still want to be of use.

From that spring, the desire to just be useful, helpful, comes a little stream of motivation. It runs along the course it slowly etches. It goes underground at times and comes back up, perhaps a spring again. What I do is not so important as how I do it and what I learn from it, what it makes of me. –Tony

Interesting…..I do what I do because I like to feel alive, and live each day as it was the last one. I’m 16 and I’m still learning about life every second….It feels awesome when you wake up and do diferent kind of things and not the same that help you to build your own future.
For example,I’m in high school and that doesn’t mean that I have to do the same things every day….like do homeworks, study for exams, to have a schedule for your day….Not! That is totally not me, I like to do diferent things every day, I go to school and try to make difference about my school from the other day. I try to not get boring….and if it happens I just sit and see all the amazing creations we have, like the beauty of a park and all the view around me…..and then those pictures stay in my head and the I go home and start to remenber those beauties and draw them….It’s my hobby I must admit! Do what you do makes you think of your future…so what you do in the present like right know will affect on your future….Bye!
Melissa.

By the way, that “?” was supposed to be a .

I wish to express admiration and gratitude Allison for that that it could collect on this blog of so clever people and itself force of the thought forces us to think, I hope she remains so deep person and on this blog I will continue to find very interesting thoughts and to state the. The truth unfortunately therefore some things I not up to the end understand. English not my native language and I can express itself them not clearly…

I find myself wondering a lot about what my purpose in life is. In the summer it is so easy to distract myself but, as a second year student in University, i look at the course i am majoring and i wonder “what is the point?” is this what i really want? so what if i achieve my goal, will i be any good? I think that the thought that maybe all this money i am spending to get an education may all be for nothing scares me and so i try to put aside the question and reassure myself that i am on the right track. But, the scariest part is seeing all the people who have found their purpose becasue, it just makes me wonder more: what is my purpose? and when will i recognize it? So, i guess it is nice to know that not everyone wakes up and says, “hey i know who i am, what i want, and how to get it!”

Sometimes i guess we expect the reason for why we do what we do to be obvious, so when we realize we don’t know, then we usually give up and never have the opportunity to find out

Hi All!
I was asking myself this before the new school year started a few weeks ago. This blog portion was the result.

Band Director Extraordinaire

With one day left until I resume my position as band director extraodinaire, I have billions of goals and aspirations whirling and twirling in my head that I must plan and execute in this upcoming school year. During a conversation with a friend the other day, in an attempt to explain “what I do” ,I began to list things that I am responsible for as a band director. It almost cracked me up as the list of responsibilities just kept coming at an indefinite rate. I am well aware that every teacher in school is inundated with more work than is practically possible, but the realization that I face as the band director is that there is no other person in the entire school who can do my job. Other academic teachers share lesson plans and unit plans. They can fill in for one another when the need arises. Even a lay person can come in as a sub and keep students somewhat engaged by giving them written work (understanding that this is still no replacement for the real teacher)…..but the truth is that “I” am the only individual in my school who has the knowledge, skill, and talent to turn my “bandies”(a.k.a. band students) into musicians. If I asked almost anyone on staff to relay, in a reasonable manner, how to form the proper flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, tube, trumpet, etc., embouchure, most of them would look at me and say “Embouchure??” That realization has pumped me up about this year and my job. I possess a truly unique gift to give the world. I possess the potential for inspiring the future generation of musical artists!! I possess the potential ability to create a whole individual. An individual who can do much more than fill in a bubble to pass a test. And if I stay the course, work my toes off, plan and succeed, I will have a legacy of human beings who don’t just exist, but human being who act and create. That is enough electricity to run my batteries forever on those frequent 16 hour days of school, then rehearsal, then performance. Or, to keep frustration at bay when I have been slaving away trying to write the appropriate arrangement of a song that my students are dying to play. These are the things that I have to stay committed to to make this a truly amazing and eventful year for the heart of my band program!! 2008-2009…here I come!

Hey Allison,

Congrats on getting more hits on your blog. I really applaud you for making this site a platform to discuss different ideas and to unite people from different backgrounds. It takes guts to do that.

Why do I do what I do? That is certainly a question that I need to ask myself and I thank you for reminding me.

Sometimes I feel as if some of the things I do I do because it is the safe way out. I am not much of a risk taker and I hate not knowing what the future holds for me. I like to have control of my situation and choosing the safest option helps me garner that control.

Sometimes I wonder if the safest way is the best way? What if I did take more risks in my life? Maybe life would be more enriching for me? Maybe I need to take small risks that don’t have severe consequences to them. This way, I can still feel as if I am not reckless.

It’s hard to think outside of what I have been doing my entire life. I have grown up with the value of always having back-up plans for everything and mulling options out until I wring them dry before I choose to act. It can be very helpful most of the time, but sometimes going with my gut can really be better.

I don’t know if you have this problem, but I find that I have silenced my instincts to the point where I can’t hear them at all. Our instincts can really guide us to what we truly want and what is best for us, and I don’t know how I can let my instinct resurface.

Whoa, a lot of thinking. I feel as if I am going in circles with my thoughts, but at least it helps to write them down.

Again, I can’t commend you enough for your big heart and fantastic goals for this site and which direction you want to go with it.

You are truly a terrific and thoughtful person, Allison

Take Care,
Aysha