My quest to figure out what to do with the rest of my life whenever the rest of my life should arrive is still on. My search for a new college life major has occasionally tripped up by the job which I’m currently committed to and 7-day-a-week schedule I’m on most weeks, but I refuse to let my mission get sidetracked too much.

Surprisingly enough (to me) I’ve managed to keep up with my blog reading during all of this and have been reading accounts of Maggie Mason’s Mighty Summit, a weekend meetup for professional blogging ladies to connect and motivate one another. Maggie had all the attendees create a life list (like a bucket list) so they could discuss what was standing in their way of accomplishing the things on their list.

I’m not exactly game to create a life list per se at the moment as it would mostly be filled with travels to everywhere, lots of good food consumption and shopping sprees galore, but I knew almost immediately that I needed a life list that focused on career goals.

See, when it came time for me to choose my career, I really didn’t think much about it. I wish I could tell you why, but I am dumbfounded as to why I skipped such a major step. Maybe it’s because the voices in high school were all “pick a good college! pick a good college!” and when I got to my (sorta ok) college, the voices were all “hurry up and pick a major!” So I went with the one that seemed like it might suit me without ever looking back to evaluate if it did.

Any college students reading this blog: Be ye not so shortsighted.

Now isn’t exactly the ideal time to be coming up with a life major, but I realize the longer I wait the less ideal the time will be. So in the spirit of exploring the things that could be my new life major, I give you my work-specific life list of things I would like to do professionally and interests that I wouldn’t mind being a part of my professional life.

• Writing. It’s the craft that led me to my current job, and it’s still the part of my current job that I love. I enjoy writing on many subjects and can mold my writing skills to suit creative writing demands to technical writing demands.
• A novel written by me. I have had a book in my head for five years now. I know the characters. I know exactly how the plot goes. I need to put it on paper (or screen) and get around to the tedious process of trying to sell it to a publisher.
• My own business. I want to be my own boss at some point, I think. I really want to create something that contributes to society, nurture it and make money off of it. I don’t know what this business will be, but I’ve not ruled out a food-oriented business, retail shop or some sort of service run out of my own home.
• Home design. Not architecture, more interior design. I love it. I wish I had the money and time to make my home exactly as I want it, but it’s a process that can’t be hurried. A day in which I haven’t read Apartment Therapy, flipped through my Domino book or magazine backcopies, drooled over the home wares in the Anthropologie catalog or visited one of my favorite local home stores is a very bad day.
• Travel. I want to go everywhere. Even Mars. I love big cities. I love remote mountains. I have many unfulfilled dreams of oversees travel. Though I should mention traveling cannot come at the expense of my home base.
• Blogging and web design. I very much love The Modern Gal. I’m trying to get to a point where I can make her look more beautiful thanks to my own design skills. I’d also love to start a topical blog of some sort. One that could generate some revenue. I wouldn’t mind people paying me to design sites either.
• Organization. This is a skill of mine that probably should just be applied to one of the above items, but I can be super-organized when I want to be. And I get really excited about well-organized spaces.
• Copy editing. I’m not a copy editor now, but I’ve done a bit of it in the past, and I think I’m pretty stinkin’ good at it. Of course, no one employs copy editors anymore. I’ve tried to put those skills to use by offering my services to a couple of quasi-professional blogs I love, but neither worked out for different reasons. I’ll keep trying. (Do you have a blog that needs copy editing?)

So there’s my list, or at least the start of a list that will probably be edited over and over. I post it both as public proof of my goals and dreams in hopes of staying accountable to them. I also post it in hopes that you, modern friends, might have a little inspiration to offer. If there’s one thing the internet is not short on, it’s inspiration.