{"id":1567,"date":"2016-04-11T07:19:32","date_gmt":"2016-04-11T12:19:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/?p=1567"},"modified":"2016-04-09T13:53:42","modified_gmt":"2016-04-09T18:53:42","slug":"pursue-passion-margins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/2016\/04\/11\/pursue-passion-margins\/","title":{"rendered":"Pursuing Your Passion in the Margins"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Why<\/a>
\nThis is the start of my newest article for Darling Magazine<\/a>.<\/em>
\nYou can read the full article here<\/a>!<\/em><\/p>\n

While we wish it were otherwise, most of us don\u2019t have the luxury of pursuing our creative passions as a full-time job.<\/strong> Whether we love painting or pouring candles, writing or dancing, event planning or photography, the truth is that we don\u2019t often make a living from those passions. Instead, we find pockets of time to shadow those desires on the weekends, the evenings, and, often, when we could be sleeping. We read articles and books about our hobbies, and spend our money on the passion we love so dearly. But we aren\u2019t waking up every morning to head to a studio or the craft room or the keyboard. Instead, we get up and work at jobs that don\u2019t set our hearts aflame.<\/p>\nThose hours in the margins are often charged with the electricity of a soul on fire. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n

There were a lot of years where I bemoaned my lack of time to pursue my passion. I\u2019m a writer at heart, a woman who comes alive with the tap of keys on the keyboard, a woman who could spend hours each day whittling down a paragraph until it sings with the vibrancy of power and precision.<\/strong> But for most of my adult life, I\u2019ve been a writer in the margins, pulling out my laptop in the evenings or on the weekends, taking twenty minutes over lunch or an hour after work to finish an article or pen a chapter.<\/p>\n

And for a while, I thought I was missing out.<\/strong> I spent my best hours, I believed, working as an administrative assistant, and later as a teacher \u2014 for ten years. I gave those \u201cnormal\u201d work hours to jobs that I deeply valued but that didn\u2019t necessarily hit the sweet spot of all of my dreams and passions. I supposed that because I wasn\u2019t a full time writer \u2014 a full time creative \u2014 I wasn\u2019t doing the beautiful, meaningful work that I could be doing if only I had the time.<\/p>\n

I was wrong.<\/em><\/p>\n

I can say that because, in many ways, I\u2019m on the other side of the proverbial fence now; I work as a writer and writing coach<\/a>. I\u2019m a full-time creative \u2014 well, as full-time as I can be while also being a wife and mother, and being primarily at home with my toddler. But I\u2019m making a living as a writer, and when I\u2019m working at my job, it\u2019s (mostly) in my creative sweet spot.<\/p>\n

And I have learned that I\u2019m not more creative because I have more time. I\u2019m not even convinced that I\u2019m producing \u201cbetter\u201d work because I have more hours to work in.
\n<\/strong>
\nHaving to squeeze our passions into the margins of our lives is a good, good thing. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, what I\u2019m realizing now is that the necessary boundaries that most of us live in \u2014 our jobs, our responsibilities, the hours we give to mothering and laundry-folding and meal-making and grocery shopping \u2014 those boundaries are actually gifts to us, if we will receive them that way.\u00a0Having to squeeze our passions into the margins of our lives is a good, good thing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You can read the rest of the article here, at Darling Magazine<\/a>!<\/p>\n

And if you’re a writer, don’t miss out on this post<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Images via\u00a0S\u00e9 Kipp<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the start of my newest article for Darling Magazine. You can read the full article here! While we wish it were otherwise, most of us don\u2019t have the luxury of pursuing our creative passions as a full-time job. Whether we love painting or pouring candles, writing or dancing, event planning or photography, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21,23],"tags":[668,804,806,124,803,807,802,805,28],"class_list":["post-1567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-post","category-writing","tag-ann-swindell","tag-creative","tag-creativity","tag-darling-magazine","tag-full-time-creative","tag-how-do-i-become-a-writer","tag-passion","tag-passion-in-the-margins","tag-writer","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/why-its-ok-passion.jpg?fit=900%2C600&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1567"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1573,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567\/revisions\/1573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}