Tag: live your legend

Day 7 of 7: Revolution 

EvaLeave a comment

Here we go. The final day of the 7 day blog challenge from Live Your Legend.

Final prompt: What revolution will you lead? 

Looking back at my answers from the week, the answer must have something to do with dreams. So I’m going to do what I do best: daydream.

There’s an open field, grey like a battlefield in a chain-mail movie. Dying grass beneath my booted feet, pale mountains in the distance. I’m reminded of the Ace of Swords in the Rider Waite Tarot Deck.

A symbol for mental clarity and victory, this card (for me, right now) is about accepting destiny. I’m not sure I believe in true destiny, but the image is strong.

Back to the battlefield. I’m the leader of an army. I’m the Ace of Swords. With weapon in hand and stoic expression on my face, I turn around. Standing behind me is none-other than….
My mother. My aunt. The two women I can’t inspire. The two strong women with desk jobs who willingly let their dreams die.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with a desk job. However, my mom wanted to be an artist. My aunt wants to live in Scotland and do who knows what else. But they can’t, because they truly believe that working at these jobs and owning houses too large for them is what they’re supposed to do. It makes me so damn sad.

They dropped their swords. And it’s not just them! Sometimes I feel surrounded on all fronts by people who refuse to change their lifestyle because they think it’s wrong or impossible. They come with excuse after excuse for why they have to keep living this way.

My mom won’t sell the house and go for a smaller one because she doesn’t think there would be enough room. She’s right. We have way too much shit. But living smaller means living simpler. Obviously, I’m a huge advocate of tiny houses. I’ll get to that in the coming weeks.

Let’s focus on the task at hand, Eva.

Yesterday I wrote that some people say I have my head in the clouds. I hate hearing that for two reasons.
1. It means they think I’m naive.
2. It means they’ve failed somehow. They dropped their swords and didn’t pick them up again.

I want these people to rally behind me. I want to be like that kid in the DreamWorks logo fishing from the moon, and I want to fish for the Neg Heads and Nay Sayers. And I want to pull them up! I want them to stand by me!

The only way I know how to lead is the way my dad taught me: Lead by example. All I have to do to front the revolution I want to lead is live in a tiny home, travel, and shout about it from the tiny rooftops. Maybe someone will hear me. And when I think about it like that, it doesn’t sound impossible.

That’s all for today.
Cheers,
Eva Moe

Day 6 of 7: Do I want to make a difference?

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Fine. The real prompt is: What difference do you want to make?

That’s either a super easy question or a very challenging one.
Easy answer: I want to inspire people, I want people to love traveling, I want fewer people to feel stuck at their desk jobs.

That’s what I’m supposed to say.

But really, do I even want to make a difference? Isn’t that a bit grandiose for Little Ole Me?  Do I mean any of the kind-hearted answers I gave above? If so, why do I only think about myself lately? Seriously, my brain is 30% UK travel plans, 30% which tiny trailer should I move into when I come back from the UK, 30% I don’t have enough money for my desires, and 10% bitching about working every single day. Did you notice how ZERO PERCENT involves anyone else? I can’t focus on making a difference in the world if I’m 100% consumed with myself. It’s just not how things work.

Yesterday I wrote my Elevator Pitch. When people ask what I do, I’m supposed to tell them what excites me, not what my jobs are. I landed on, “I’m a traveling storyteller”. I don’t know if I have the gumption to make such claims to strangers, but that was yesterday’s choice.

Still, it got me thinking, and all that thinking made me angry (tbh it doesn’t take much). When people make small talk with me, they ask where I went to school and what I majored in. University of Minnesota with a degree in Art, double minor in Film Studies and Cultural Studies in Comparative Literature. Then they ask, “What are you going to do with that?” AND I HATE DISLIKE THEM FOR IT IMMEDIATELY! Why does every Get To Know You session begin with how I’m making a career out of an art degree?

But I’m polite, so I swallow my angst and say, “My art degree wasn’t just about making artwork. It prepared me to be a creative problem solver, and that skill translates to any field.” Which is true. Then I tell them what I really like to do.

I say: I like to travel. That’s what I really want to do with my life.
Then I wait.
They will reply with one of two things.
1. That’s so cool! 
2. You have your head in the clouds.

OOOO it makes me mad. To be fair, most #2s sugar-coat their comment with politeness. Like, “Wouldn’t that be nice.” They toss my dream aside because it sounds like a permanent vacation. They don’t know that traveling can be super hard and stressful. I mean, I’ve lived with rats, spiders the size of a child’s hand, showered for a month without soap, and when I go to another country everything I own must fit in my backpack.

But you know what? I do have my head in the clouds. I wish more people did. That’s the difference I want to make.

Day 5 of 7: Elevator Pitch

Eva

“The real goal of our pitch is to talk about something you’re excited about and get a feel for how others react to it.” [Prompt and quote by the late, great Scott Dinsmore.]
Prompt 5: What’s your elevator pitch?

Rough draft of my elevator conversation:
Unbiased stranger: What do you do?
Possible new response: I save money for travel
I travel the world to gain more gather stories and tell them to people.
I travel the world and tell stories. I travel the world and write.
Fewer words: I’m a traveling storyteller. Remember that from last time?
Sure, that moves a pawn forward, but are they going to take my bishop with some shit like “Wow, you’re young. I remember when I had my head in the clouds too.”?

And still, am I really a traveling storyteller? Is that even what I want to do? Well, yeah! Those are two of my favorite things combined! That’s my version of, “I drink and I know things”.

So excited for Game of Thrones S7E1 TONIGHT! And I don’t even have to work!

Day 4 of 7

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Today’s Prompt: What’s one thing you’re proud of?

I’ll keep this one short because the liquor store closes soon and I’m out of wine.

I’m proud that I went to China by myself in 2015. It was my first solo trip, and also the first time I felt in control of my own life. Taking the leap to live in Beijing for 3 months was somehow easy, as if I was a superhero emerging from the ashes of a fallen building. In my case, the fallen building was the most recent semester. I was wickedly depressed, my grades were poor and I had so much late work*, and no desire to stay in college (though I had merely one semester left).

Then I was left stranded at the Beijing International Airport. Some miscommunication I still don’t understand left me without a chauffeur, and I had to take a taxi to my apartment. I had no idea where my apartment was, and neither did my driver.

We communicated in broken English, broken Chinese, and Google Translate. I got to my apartment. I waited, but my roommate wasn’t there. Instead I saw a man about my age, who motioned me to follow him. So I did (because why not), and it turns out he was roommate #2, whom I didn’t know even existed. He showed me around the apartment speaking both a little English and the easiest Chinese he could manage, which I still didn’t understand half of. Roommate #1, Lydia, arrived, and the three of us went to dinner. It’s a happy memory.

Sorry for not keeping this short. Essentially, I’m proud that I took the initiative to unhook myself from my tethers.

 

*On the way to the airport, just a few hours before my flight took off, my mom took me to school so I could drop off a late paper that I had finished that morning. Then I went to fucking China. My paper was a full summer late.

Day 1 of 7: Why I’m Here

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On this blog, I mean. We don’t need to have an existential talk. This post is part 1 of a 7-day challenge from Live Your Legend.

I started writing this blog because I’m horribly unorganized. I have almost a dozen journals filled to the brim with rants, prose, doodles and poems.

On wordpress, all my [new] stuff is right here, either saved as a draft or published. I can directly see my progress as a writer and after a while, all my little posts add up to a large body of work. I don’t have to bring old journals with me wherever I go, because they’re all on my phone.

What I want, by the time this blog’s 1 year anniversary comes around, is a large body of writing that I can be proud of. I can look back at 2017, however shitty or great it turns out to be, and say, “I wrote.” Maybe I’ll cringe at all the commas. Maybe not.