Incorporating Our Randomly Gifted Aspects

As you probably have already noticed, I wear many hats, and I enjoy that… for the most part. It’s hard to balance the various demands, and I’m learning more and more than my “web site brain” doesn’t work concurrently with my “research and history brain”. That is, I can’t really switch from one to the other within minutes. It’s best for me to have a couple hours dedicated to research, then do a bunch of small website tasks for an hour, then several hours of history again. All that to say, I’m constantly looking for ways for my various hats to merge. This month they did, just a little.

I’m excited to present a paper at this year’s California American Studies Association Annual Meeting held at my school, SDSU. My advisor Professor Ed Blum is chairing the event this year and asked me to sit on the Program Committee. The first thing I noticed as we were all going over the materials was that the previous years programs were just Word documents printed out and stapled in the corner… no bueno. So I volunteered to design the program, and I’m totally happy with the results. Check it out here at the CASA webpage (scroll down to the 2013 Conference Program link).

What’s Your Randomly Gifted Aspect?

Our time is our most valuable asset we have — that’s true, any personal trainer or guru will tell you that. But does that mean we all have to protect our time like it doesn’t belong to anyone or anything else ever? We all have talents and skills in things that are outside the core of our vocations. Some people say there’s a little artist in everyone. I think that’s true to some extent, but I think it’s more true to say there’s a “randomly gifted aspect” inside everyone. Maybe you you have a little artist in you, or an accounting geek, or a food junkie, or a web guy. Whatever it is, bring it to the table in everything you do. Put a little skin in the game by investing in a project with something that interests you. For me, I find that it makes the whole thing enjoyable. I have a tiny bit of ownership, I get to collaborate with great people, I create a product that everyone enjoys and wouldn’t have had without my contribution. I can give my time to that!

So for you, I’d encourage you to look for that thing you’re doing right now that you just seem to not enjoy at all. Define that thing, and then think of ways to incorporate your “randomly gifted aspect” into it. It changes everything.