carladoria.lasultimasfamilias.com

Author: Carla Doria

  • How late is it to change paths?

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    Image source: jenifferbarnett.edublogs.org

    Well I studied Industrial Engineering, did a Master degree on Environmental Studies, worked on a couple of companies in the production, planning and logistics area, did some consulting on Quality Management Systems, Good Manufacturing Practices, Industrial Safety. Before that, I worked in the Purchases department of another company, did some work on external trade and even took some courses on Customs regulations in my country. I also worked on project management in a software development company and even occupied a position as “E-commerce sales analyst” ah… and I also sold cars in a car dealer shop.  And I could be going on for a couple more paragraphs on the many things I did and studied in approximately 8 years. I´ve changed jobs so many times that I actually hate to fill in Resumes just because I can´t remember already many things… On the other side, I´ve seen many people who graduated with me from the University getting stable jobs and promotions and now earning good money.

    I also went on the entrepreneur side and I´m still going on it as I like it (and I see it as my main income source). But now I have settled down a little bit, I have managed to find a job that gives me some sort of “peace of conscience”, one job that doesn´t make me want to run away as fast possible from it.  I´m not looking anymore for other job opportunities in the newspaper. I´m ok where I´m, like I mentioned in a previous post, I work in Software Development Company as a Technical Writer. This is completely different from my previous job experience and educational background, but I like it, I actually like the “writer” part more than anything, and I think that I´m on the way to something good and bigger yet, but most important, I´m on the correct path…. I always knew since I was very young that this was the path… but I guess I wasn´t brave enough to look for it… I was too worried thinking on what the family and friends would think… since all the people I knew where studying these complex careers like engineerings and that stuff and getting jobs and working their ass off it…

    So is it too late for this change? Of course not! I´m actually grateful that I´m still young to do this change, I knew deeply that I wanted to this change but I always thought that I was going to do it later, in the future, you know after I got married and raised kids and that regular things that we think is what we must only strive for…

    Of course, I would have liked to have this change before the 8 years or maybe I would have liked to have chosen a different career after school… but I wouldn´t have had the experiences that have allowed me to mature and see things the way I see them now. I can´t go in the past, but I´m lucky to have reached this point in life where I definitely know where I want to head… many people live their lives without knowing it and some of them know it but won´t do anything (for me the saddest thing that could happen).

    So I´m reinventing myself, I don´t care anymore what are my degrees and post-degrees and my previous job experiences were, because none of those things make me happy. What I care is that I have a new chance now I´m willing to go with all for it!

    So how about you? Do you think that it´s too late to change careers or paths? 

  • How brave are you?

    How brave are you?.

  • How brave are you?

    This post is going to be a little bit different from others…

    Some time ago there was an incident in a city near mine; some guy was killed on the streets through gunshot in the middle of the day in a not so dangerous neighborhood due to some “business settlement vendetta”.  The incident was on all the local news and a security video from the street showed exactly what happened. The guy could have been saved, because you can see how the assailant starts shooting from the other side of the street first, the victim goes down to the floor without being hit first and then runs to the car of a woman and begs for her to let him in. The woman got scared and pressed on the accelerator of her car as fast as she could and disappeared. A couple of seconds later, the shooter arrived to where the guy was laying and shot him to death.

    Would you have done the same thing as the woman? Would you have let the guy inside the car to save him? I’ve always said that I would have tried to help him, opened the door and then accelerated as fast as I could. Maybe I would have gotten myself into trouble. I imagine myself already in a persecution, with the guy in the car, and the bad guys’ cars trying to intercept me.  Then, I hear some close friends saying that the woman did the best, and I can’t help but to imagine that If I were the woman I would feel so guilty that I could have saved one life, and that  I was so “chicken” that I left the poor guy to die.

    I don’t know, I would have had to be there, in the “moment”, in the “situation”, maybe given the time I would have reacted equally to the woman, maybe I would have paralyzed or maybe I would have gotten the “guts” to save him. I’ve always considered myself more courageous than the average, but I’ve never been in situations where I could actually prove myself how brave am I.

    But apart from this type of “hero braveness”, how courageous or brave am I in my ordinary life?  Because there is another type of “courageousness”, the one that make us go through our believes, no matter the difficulties we may found on the road, the one that makes us continue and gather our strengths to defeat our most simple fears.

    Was I ever fearful of leaving my routine, leaving jobs, leaving cities, leaving countries, changing my paths, or changing everything around me?  Luckily I can answer that with a No. And I know maybe I may not be the most courageous person in the world but I know that I’m brave enough to face my fears, risks, changes and the unknown…

    And you, how brave are you? I think we must always make this analysis….

    Until next post…

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    Image source: taraburner.com

  • HOW HARD IS IT TO BE PERSISTENT?

    So, PERSISTENCE, what is the definition of PERSISTENCE?

    The Oxford dictionary says

    “the fact of continuing in an opinion or course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition”

    Well, we can understand this meaning, it is simple, and everybody knows it, but can we understand it well enough to apply it in our lives?

    Since I remember, I use to make plans for improving my life; I would make things like these ones:

    1. Make a written, signed contract where I compromise myself with improving in all aspects: losing weight, going to the gym, learning mandarin or Italian (whatever was I felt I needed to learn at that time), read 3 books per month, learn this or that, etc.I would get to do this for a couple of days, maybe a week and then I would get weaker and I would just forget it.
    2. I would also do more detailed plans, I would write my resolutions in a paper, make detailed plans to achieve them and even set daily goals. I would buy a diary or notebook, just specifically for this purpose. I would start with all my enthusiasm and then the same would happen, I would forget it or just get consumed with the daily routine.

    So this is the summary of the dozens of times that I have tried different approaches. Some methods would work better than others, but always at the end I was swallowed with the everyday routine.

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    Image source: www.empowernetwork.com

    At this very moment, I´m with one method, I have a little notebook at work where I write the hours of the day and try to assess every hour I let pass, so I just put a happy or sad face next to it when I feel an hour has been productive or not. Until now, it´s been lasting more than any method. But, I must admit it, there are hours, even days, where I forget about this thing and I find myself filling hours with sad faces trying to remember what I had done before. I hope this method lasts….

    But, besides this, I have actually realized the following: I´ve been persisting in improving my life, trying different methods but with the same idea: improving. So I have accused myself many times of not being persistent enough and it´s is true, in some ways… after all, the most difficult thing to achieve in life for me has being persistence.

    But the idea is to persist right? And I have persisted in figuring it out these methods, even when they didn´t work, I would look for another one… little step by little step, mistake by mistake, and at the end NEVER SURRENDER…

    And more than anything never stop persisting in trying to achieve our dreams, no matter how our methods are, but never give up on our dreams, never forget them….

    I would like to finish with this quote:

    “If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of Persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked seventy times and get up off the floor saying, Here comes Seventy One!”

    DeVos, Richard

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    Image source: www.empowernetwork.com

  • The Word Press Family Award

    Thanks to Christian of Five Quick Minutes for sharing this Award with me, it´s an honor and I´m very proud to display this Award Logo with all the people following my humble posts who have been very supportive!

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    I´ve just started this blog a month ago and I´ve already found a community of very nice bloggers/friends who think and believe like me, which has been very supportive. 

    As the rules say, I´m very glad to nominate the following blogs from people that are regular followers of my blog and whose blogs I can´t wait to read: 

    HUE http://thehuepoint.com/

    Playing your hand right http://playingyourhandright.wordpress.com/

    I won´t take it http://iwonttakeit.wordpress.com/

    James Oliver Development http://jamesoliverdevelopment.wordpress.com/

    JT Weaver http://jtweaverblog.wordpress.com/

    Datingtallsingle http://datingtallsingle.wordpress.com/

    You by my side http://youbymyside.wordpress.com/

    Paula´s Pontifications http://paularenee.wordpress.com/

    LeadershipFreak http://leadershipfreak.wordpress.com/

    Prophetbrahmarishi http://prophetbrahmarishi.me/

    I recommend you go into all these links and read they wonderful blogs. 

    And thanks again Christian from Five Quick Minutes for such joyful news!

     

     

     

  • HOW VIRTUAL CAN OUR EXISTANCE BE?

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    Image source: www.mondolithic.com

    So I came to this topic when I was writing my last blog. I mentioned that it´s good to have at least good Internet contacts that are “more like us” or “believers like us” so that we can feel encouraged to follow our dreams and make them come true. Then I came with a sudden question while I was writing those lines: How virtual can our existence be? I mean for a person like me, a sort of loner on the way, sometimes we tend to look for social “contact” on online communities but even from my loner perspective this has pros and cons.

    So take into account the following:

    1. Online contacts may present themselves differently. Who can assure you that everything that you know from this contact is real? How much can you trust?
    2. We are not always sincere with our online contacts, yes, as they may be disguising themselves, it is also easier for us to disguise just a little bit (even if it´s not intentional), and who is going to know if we lie about something? If we pretend to know or do something that is not real, it is plausible that our contacts in Kazakhstan, Latvia or Mozambique will find the true?…. (Please take into account that the countries just mentioned were just a random example and any coincidence…well it´s just coincidence…  :))
    3. Communication can be totally misinterpreted, when we chat, email or write messages with some virtual friend, no matter the quantity of emoticons we use or how well we think before writing something, there´s always the chance that we could be misinterpreted, or the other way around, maybe we´re reading something in between lines that was never the intention of the sender…
    4. These online contacts or virtual friends may not be able to help us when we have a situation in the physical or real world, they may motivate us or write good encouraging things, but the extent of their help is limited, you know that…Image

    5. So if making friends is not your best attribute (like me 🙂 hence the loner tag..) Then remember, your virtual being with many virtual friends has to have a limit, prudence is the word, because you will never know what the real intentions of others might be…so prudence my dear friends, besides from that, enjoy all you online friends and community, be virtual but not that virtual… 🙂

  • FIND THE “RIGHT PEOPLE” TO BE WITH YOU

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    So this post may be a continuation or probably a contradiction of the one called “You are the result of the 5 people that hang out with you the most: WRONG”, but don’t be disappointed, this won’t be more ramblings about the same topic but rather a different and more interesting point of view.

    So in that previous blog, in summary, we said:

    –          One has to fight to find their uniqueness and not engage in the same behaviour as the people surrounding them.

    –          One should define its own character so well, that we’re not influenced by those traits we don’t believe in, especially from our friends or family.

    Don’t worry, I still agree with this and I’m not going to argue it, BUT – always the big BUT – there is some true in the fact that you must look forward to be surrounded by people like you; and I don’t mean people that think, act or behave exactly like you, but people that intrinsically have the same BELIEFS as you. Yep, that’s the word I was struggling to find when I was thinking, this afternoon, about writing this blog.

    If you are a true believer that with perseverance you can make your dreams come true, no matter what dreams are; then it’s actually discouraging to be with people who think that you are such a dreamer, or don’t get your point in focusing in something that you probably won’t achieve according to them.

    Well, I know sometimes our closer friends and relatives will be this crashing- dreamer types and that we won’t able to get far away from them. But we must look for and try to find those people (or at least internet contacts) that have our same BELIEFS, so that we feel energized, and motivated. Because sometimes it’s not enough to be our own drivers and motivators, sometimes we need a hand or a little push.

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    So if you just spotted somebody that is a BELIEVER like you, get the chance to know that person, you may find a good friend in him or her, and who knows, maybe the path to achieving everything you always wanted to will be easier with some support by your side.

    You noticed that I mentioned “Internet contacts” before, well actually as a loner,     I´m not the “expert”  in giving advice of how to make friends, but I found that the least I could do was engage on online communities, or blogs with people that help me feel encouraged to follow my dreams (I may explore this topic deeper in a future post) but If I spot some positive thinker and believer like me in my neighborhood, I may introduce myself…

    So what do you think? Do you think it is good to find BELIEVERS like you?

     

  • Fear of mistakes and risks? Why? Those are the best things in life!!!

    Well, this is the final week of my gift store. Well, it’s a long story but I’ll summarize it for you.

    Two years ago I decided to quit my job because I was tired of the path I was taking and I wanted to be independent (meaning not working for somebody else). I didn’t have much money at that point and started a little business of my own: a gift store with many novelties that were not to be found anywhere in my city. I didn’t do much market research and I thought that the products I was trying to sell were so awesome that people were going to buy it without hesitation. Unfortunately, things in my country are really different from what I expected, and after 2 years of investing money in renting a place and trying to make the business grow, I came to the conclusion that it was not profitable. I was never good in accounting and finance, but I know that in the course of those 2 years I have invested a significant amount of money and I haven’t recovered not a third of it, yeah it sucks…. But I’m actually happy, I‘ll tell you later why.

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    So right now, everything is on sale at my store, and while I write this blog, I’m sitting here in my store trying to get some of the merchandise sold until this Friday – the due date for the rent contract.

    So, how do I feel? Actually pretty relieved and I can’t wait for this weekend to arrive. Maybe in some way, it has become such an economic burden, through this time, that I’m willing to let it go.

    At the same time, I’ve just started working full time as a technical writer in a Software development company, and you may think, well she has her job so she’s going to be ok. Indeed, I’m going to have a very relaxing next week, leaving my job at 5 and going to my home just to rest, because I used to run to my store after work and stay until 9 pm. I used to live in my store on weekends too, and it was really exhausting.

    The thing is that my resting plan is only for next week, because I have learnt that being an entrepreneur and being independent HAS NO PRICE!!! It’s very fulfilling, so I’m just turning my physical store into a virtual store, and I have many plans for my website and that kind of stuff… let’s see how things go.

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    The learning experience, given the fact that I’ve lost money, has been priceless and I’ve already passed the worst and from here to the future I’m pretty sure things will go up. The scariest part is when you start doing a business of your own, you take so many risks, you quit your job and you make so many mistakes along the path.  But for me,  the worst part is gone, I don’t feel scary anymore, I know the mistakes I made and what I should do to avoid them, I’ve grown a lot and I don’t fear for things to come! So if there is something good for you in this, is that mistakes and risks are part of your life, don’t be afraid of them, they only make you STRONGER!!!!

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    People have tried to cheer me up, seeing this as a failure, and I keep thinking why are they doing that? This is actually GOOD!  A NEW START! With better defined goals, better experience and NO FEAR at ALL!!!

    LESSON OF THE BLOG: Don’t give up, learn from your mistakes and rise higher!!!

  • Why waiting for weekends could be so bad?

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    So this is part two of previous blog but don’t worry this piece can be read separately.

    I was saying that I actually found the solution for stop being so passive and from escaping the routine of 9 to 5 jobs. I would dare that almost 99 % of the people who have fallen into the darkness of this routine, wait desperately for the weekends to arrive. Don’t do that! Believe or not waiting for weekends is not that great, because:

    –              It gets you in your endless routine:  work from Monday to Friday, jump on your feet on  Fridays  and hate with all your heart Mondays.

    –              Then weekend comes and it passes so fast that you really feel bad on Sunday nights.

    You keep complaining that you lack of time for doing things that will help you improve towards the accomplishment of your goals?

    You want to take courses in Accounting, astronomy or whatever it is you want to do and you don’t have time for it? You want to go to the gym, learn how to knit, learn Japanese or any other interesting activity, or maybe you just simply want to be able to spend more time with your family and do more family stuff and you find out that weekends pass so fast that you didn´t do all the things you wanted to do?

    These are the sort of stuff that usually fills our lives, we want to do so many things, from learning how to dance salsa to learning Korean… but we don’t have the time!

    Let me tell you something… time management is the hardest thing you’ll strive to achieve in life because it all comes to this: We spent 5 days in our jobs and those days are about our routine and nothing else, then we find out that the weekend went so fast that we didn’t have the time to do all the things we wanted to do, ring you a bell somewhere?

    We will usually work only 8 hours per day and let’s say sleep another 8 hours(sleepy heads or the insomniac ones don´t count here) , so we get another 8 hours for living our lives, yes 8 hours more per day!!!  Of course some of that time will be spent on commuting to work and doing other needed stuff (like taking a shower, eating, etc) but I want to believe that we will have at least 4 hours remaining to do our stuff, and 4 hours times 5 is 20 hours! Which is like an extra weekend in between week!

    So each day has a little weekend of its own, each working day is a whole new adventure of the things we want to achieve! do you still want to let your five working days pass by you – without any impact – and in a constant wait for the weekends of your life? You can find time in weekdays to do many things, really think about your routine…

    When Monday comes, I say to myself: Well this is good! A new opportunity to start running the life that I want for myself! And I begin my countdown, I have five days to go, so many things to do until Friday I better hurry up!

    Please stop hating Mondays!

  • How passive can people be?

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    I actually doubted a lot when I started to write about this topic because I always try to find something in which I’m good at and hence advice about it. If I weren’t following my own advices in this blog, it would kind of weird to write about it, don’t you think? More directly, it would be wrong! , one can’t give advice on something that doesn’t know how it works!

    Well, let’s get to the topic or you may find me rambling about everything and nothing.

    Let’s start with this quote:

    “It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them, but went out and happened to things”

    Leonardo Da Vinci

    So the first time I read this, I said hell yes! That’s for sure! But then it got me thinking if I was really acting upon this. This is all about being active and passive; if you get another interpretation you can always write a comment to discuss it.

    So the people who stay passive and let things happen to them are not achievers? Well yes! Even for those who wait for lottery money, they have to go out there and buy the lottery ticket! And they just can’t expect to win the big prize without any ticket!

    This may be a post that makes references to my previous posts but it all comes to the same things: You have to go out there and make things happen! You have to act to achieve your goals!

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    Sadly, if you look around, I would dare to say that maybe 80 % or more of people that surround you are really passive, they would have a 9 to 5 job then go back to their homes, do some chores or routinely stuff and then get up the next day and start the same routine. These people are like an outbreak… are we going to let them absorb our beings?

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    We must go out there! Act upon our dreams, on the virtues we admire on others! Our life is a countdown, how much are we going to wait?

    So I actually found the solution and I hope that it will really help people out there who work in 9 to 5 jobs and desperately wait for the weekend to come, so keep in tune for my next blog! (Don’t worry it will come very soon, I decided to divide this blog so it won’t be too long !!!)

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