You want to save the world, don’t you.
And if you can’t save it, you want to at least change it for the better.
I feel you.
I used to think the best way to do this was via degrees in human services and nonprofit leadership, a stint in the Peace Corps, and various other direct service roles.
While I cannot express enough love and gratitude for those years, I never found a situation in which I was fulfilled.
It always came back to the art.
Since the first time I squeezed paint out of a tube with my tiny toddler hands.
It’s never left.
The many attempts at funding art school failed, leaving me to think that wasn’t what I was supposed to be doing with my life after all.
So into the rat race I dove, only painting when I wasn’t hammering out 30-page papers while pounding red bull and crying.
Fast forward 7 years, and I’m a blissed out newlywed living in the desert and dealing with the single most wretched disaster of a boss that I’ve ever had.
Like, holy fuck. This guy. I started to think that my friend Garland was right 5 years before…maybe I wasn’t meant to work for other people.
So one day I get home after my hour commute into the sun across the 50-shades-of-brown city that is Phoenix…I can’t get my pants off and pour that wine fast enough.
Husband rolls in looking like we just won the fucking lottery.
“We’re moving to England, baby!”
I scream/wail/collapse into sobbing tears of pure unadulterated joy for 20 minutes.
Ugly crying. Seriously.
Get to England, find myself in a situation with zero opportunity to work in my field.
Ok, universe. I get it.
Thank you.
Opened shop in 2012 and will never look back.
I know this seems like I’m getting off track. But I had to give you a bit of the back story.
It was a scary-ass decision to allow myself to be dependent on my husband while I was making the transition to running my own shit. But given the situation, it was a no-brainer.
And now, life is epic as fuck, for both of us.
I’m living my dream.
And being in this state of mind for the past few years has made me realize that this is how we’re meant to feel. We’re not meant to be miserable and feel lost for our whole lives.
We’re meant to listen to that calling.
Whatever it is.
Because if we have something in us at the soul level, it was put there for a reason.
It was put there because you are meant to bring that thing into the world.
Changing the world in a way that only you can.
Isn’t that the most epic way to honor your soul?
To thank the universe?
To pursue your calling to the best of your ability?
Imagine what you could achieve when you are moving with the universe instead of against it.
Imagine what ripples you could start by unburying the treasures that live inside you.
Your potential is unlimited.
The more of you maximizing your potential and fulfilling your purpose, the more light you emit.
The more happiness.
The more joy, the more love you are bringing into the world.
You want to change the world? Listen to your calling.
So tell me in the comments below.
What is it? What is your thing?
The thing that has been patiently (or not so patiently) been living in you for longer than you can remember?
Are you listening to it?
I want to know.
Emily is an Artist, entrepreneur, and ambitious introvert who had to rethink her career plans when she married a military man. She wrote Permission Granted to lift other purpose-driven women up on the journey to creating their ideal lives.
