“Whatever outrageous dream keeps flowing across your mind, allow it to live inside you. Don’t deflect it, diminish it, invalidate it, or come up with some excuse for why it can’t happen. This will allow it to explain itself to you – why it’s there, what it means, and what, if anything, you should do about it.” -Marianne Williamson
Ever since I was a little girl, I had a drive deep within me to be creative. As I went through high school and college, it seemed like everyone around me knew what they wanted to do with their lives. They had it all mapped out, but that wasn’t what made me anxious. It wasn’t that they knew what they wanted to do and I didn’t because I did know. I told myself that I wanted to be an elementary school teacher and I ran with it. The part that scared me was that they were all so passionate about what they wanted, and I wasn’t. I would imagine myself 10, 20, 30 years down the line being miserable with a 9-5 job that I didn’t love. Children are amazing, but teachers are highly underpaid and underappreciated for the work they do. School systems and policies prevent creativity in the classroom. I knew I wouldn’t be able to fully use my creative side and that scared me, but I was going to do it because society was telling me that it was the right thing to do. You need to have that stable, 9-5 job or else you didn’t succeed in life.
Let me tell you, that’s a bunch of bullshit. Whoever decided that the only way someone can appear to be successful is if they take a corporate, conventional job is honestly stupid. If that’s what you want, then that’s amazing! But for me, the thought of having a conventional job for the rest of my life made me feel so unfulfilled. This is why I made the risky, somewhat reckless decision to quit my job and start a self-run candle business. This is something that I had wanted to do for a long time, but I was always too scared to because of the fear that it might fail. I’m not exactly sure what it was, but something inside me shifted two months ago and my heart was yelling at me to go for it. So, I did. I bought everything I could possibly need to start a candle business and I went to town. I made around thirty candles in one month, I designed my own labels, I printed my own labels, I made my own scents, and I had never felt prouder of myself. That one month of creating made me feel more fulfilled than I ever did at any school or job, and that told me that I was doing the right thing. There are still moments and days where I feel incredibly anxious about my decision. There are times where I think I’m absolutely crazy, or where I doubt myself, but if I give up, I’ll never know what it could turn into. Following your dreams can be the most rewarding path, but it can also be the most terrifying. The one thing I know, however, is that I’m not going to give up. I’m going to achieve.
Link to my Etsy shop below 🙂 :
Kenzie N' Spice 