Personal updates (II): Boundaries

As I had mentioned in Part I, I had recently left a workplace in which I bloomed, because of the love I received there, and now I am throwing myself into an endeavour that gets me excited, but also scares me.

It involves creating content in various forms, not far away from I've been doing all these while, but the tables have quite turned. Previously, I'm more of an editor than a creator (even when I'm in the creating position, I still do the editing). But now, I'm mostly a creator, and being in a field that's quite foreign to me, it feels like I'm starting over. But luckily, the environment helps. Everyone is open to bouncing ideas around if you get stuck (so far, at least).

I've only been here less than a month and I'm taking it one week at a time. However I feel about this job or workplace right now can easily go either way in the coming weeks. As with anything else in my life, my tools are an open mind and a pure heart. I'm in a good place mentally and emotionally, so it's the perfect time to tackle this endeavour.

Sorry, my shyness is as painful to me as it would have been to you.

My first couple of weeks there, I had to confront the side of me I never like to acknowledge. I have always seen myself as an outgoing, gregarious person who makes friends easily. But I spent the first week at this new job like a 10-year-old at a new school. I was so painfully shy that I could barely squeak a response to a friendly co-worker, let alone look them in the eye. I literally made the effort to avoid the spots they like to gather at, so that I didn't have to interact with them. I do not have anything against them, I just didn't want to look like an idiot. And they actually made the effort, to acknowledge me and talk to me, but I shied away. It's almost like I didn't know myself, because those who know me, CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT I'M ACTUALLY SHY? Like, can you see me as someone shy? Even I was confused. As if it's not enough I'm in a foreign place where everybody's a stranger, even I had become a stranger to myself. Traumatising.

Last week - my third - was a lot better, socially. I had mustered up the courage to be more social and my friendly self had been peeking around the door again. Professionally, in the past week alone, I've had opportunities tolearn valuable new skills as well as push the boundaries of my present skills. Sure, it's not as structured as I had hoped it to be, but why focus on negative things I cannot change? I prefer to make the best of every situation.

Do you think I'm shy?

Yes

No

Not sure

Created with QuizMaker

The only instinct I have about how next week is going to be is that I have to be careful of boundaries. Not in a scary way, but in a more educational way. Maybe in future posts, I can talk more about what I do there, but right now I have yet to figure out the routes. My job is fun, I can tell you that; as I said in Part I, I am literally being paid to watch videos and make videos, and live on social media, among other things. I'm not saying it's easy -  there are goals to be hit, expectations to be met, as with any other job - but I'm really enjoying this journey because it's something I've always dreamt of doing. But I'm taking it one week at a time, with little to no expectation, because anything more than that is just setting myself up, and I know better than that.