DOING WHAT YOU LOVE

It was only a couple of months ago that I realised how little attention I paid to those four words throughout my life. Do what you love. In childhood, this manifested itself in hobbies; some children played football, some swam, some danced. Or if you were like me, you spent half your time playing sport and the other half reading. But although your parents may have shifted the balance towards you choosing a certain activity, it was your choice, and you chose to do that particular activity because you enjoyed it. This becomes even more prevalent when you reach teenage years and begin to drop hobbies - for those you carry on with are clearly those you have the most fun doing. I did synchronised swimming until I was 16 - competed in Nationals twice, with 12 hours of practice a week. You can only reach that level of commitment if you enjoy something. Children 'specialise' in fields of interest, and this decides what sort of a person they are and what they will be doing in later life.

Fast forward to the age of 16, when children have to decide their career. I know I seem fixated on career choice in my posts, but it was such an important realisation and journey for me personally that I don't want others to be stuck in the same position I was. So many people choose careers because they looked through a web page and spotted one they liked the look of, or looked at the highest-ranking salaries. But money is not going to seem like such of a pressing issue if you are bloody miserable earning it! A friend once said that although her dad earns a fair amount of money at his job, he dreads waking up every morning because he cannot stand his job. This is supposed to be a career lasting you 50 years, so why would you choose something that you hate? Life is supposed to be about happiness and fulfilling the short time we have, so why would you make yourself unhappy by making one wrong decision? If you always enjoyed leading groups and presenting in class as a child, be a teacher if that is what you want to do! If you wrote stories throughout your childhood and still have notepads full of them (ahem) then find a job where you can write for a living! If you are an incredible singer, bringing goosebumps and tears to those around you, don't listen to anyone telling you you are not good enough. Prove them wrong, and sing your way to the top!

I decided a while ago that my life is going to be focused around happiness. I will be around the people who bring out the best version of myself, and distance myself from the toxic ones. After exams, I will pick up the activities I always enjoyed doing - scrap-booking, drawing, writing, reading...the list goes on. I will set my sites on my end career goal, and do everything in my power to get there. Life is far too short to press pause and watch the replays, the best way to live your life is to LIVE! Have messy nights, travel, work night shifts, be completely and utterly spontaneous because that is the only way you can properly explore who you are, and from that develop where your future lies. University, a career and a family don't have to follow in quick succession, there is not a set path you must follow.

Do what you want, and don't let anyone tell you you're wrong.

L xx

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx2u5uUu3DE Bon Jovi - It's My Life

IDEAS AND INSPIRATION

Inspiration can be sought from anywhere. The unnamed hamlets you pass through on a train journey. The people strolling past you in the park, content in their oblivion. The harassed parent with the screaming child on the supermarket floor. If you look closely enough, if you pay enough attention to the minute details, you have the potential to find that spark of inspiration that will later ignite and begin a scorcher of a story.

That's why I always carry a notebook with me. I seem to have an unhealthy obsession with notebooks; with far too many floating around my bedroom. I am transfixed by their designs, textures and quotes, not to mention the endless pages of fresh, new white paper. I am drawn to the stationary isle of any supermarket, to the Paperchases and Rymans' of the High Street, to the quirky boutiques of Camden. When I find a notebook that is just right, it then holds all of the memories of that trip in which I can immerse myself whenever I turn the pages.

It's my safety net. If I am in brand new territory and am seemingly lost, as long as I have a notebook, I know I can sit myself somewhere, and just write. Writing is what I do best. And if I can't write, I draw. As soon as I sit myself in a library, a coffee shop or a park, with people to observe, sounds and smells to stimulate my senses, I open my notebook and write.

I am going to challenge you. I challenge you to go to a new city or town, somewhere you have never been before. Buy a notebook; whether it's a 99p ringbinder from the supermarket or a leather-bound pad from a High Street boutique, the choice is yours. Purchase a pen; fountain pens are a personal favourite but a Biro will do just fine. Locate a local coffee shop, park or even a bus stop. Then just sit still, and breathe in the smells of coffee beans, petrol fumes, freshly mown grass. Listen to the people around you, the cats fighting in the back alleys, the water fountain trickling steadily. Find your own source of inspiration, and just let the words flow from the barrel of your pen onto the crisp, white paper. Appreciate the world you live in. That's where true inspiration comes from.

SPRINGTIME

Spring. The first full season of the new year. When I think of spring, I think of all of the clichés surrounding it; small, fluffy baby animals, vibrant yellow daffodils, the beginnings of new buds on trees. But for myself, the idea of a 'fresh start' that spring brings, also gives me hope that the coming year will be the best one yet. And that is what has happened. Every year, I experience new places, people and things, and achieve more than I ever thought possible. Because of this, for the last few years, on the first day of spring (in 2015 being 20th March) I have created a list of all that I would like to accomplish in the coming year. Now the items on this list are not typical "bucket list" items, such as go skydiving, go on a road trip or visit a festival. Instead, they are tasks which I need to complete in order to ensure that I achieve everything in the future that I want to. So, I am going to share with you all that is on my list, for the year of 2015.

1. A-Levels.

In summer, I will be completing my second year of A-Levels in Biology, Psychology and English Language. At the end of my first year, I achieved CBA respectively, which, if I am being completely honest, was a disappointing result. This year I am working harder and longer than I ever have before, to achieve my goal of BAA. Despite not going to university, results like these will land me in good stead for other opportunities, and will also provide me with a platform for leverage should I ever want to go to university. Evidence of talent is useful, but every employer likes to see a high quality array of three letters on a piece of paper.

2. Get an internship.

This next point sort of goes against what I have just said, but if a balance of the two is considered then you will begin to get an idea of what I am going for. For a career in journalism, or writing, most employers will look to those with a degree first, this is true. However the factor which is just as, if not more important is evidence of your ability. By getting an internship at a magazine or online platform, even though I won't be paid I will be mixing with the right sort of people and will be able to begin putting my writing out there. I am aware that long hours will be spent fetching coffee and taking notes, but what else am I to expect when I have decided to take the hard way in? Working out how a magazine enterprise works will allow me to work my way up in their estimations, and get advice from the best on how to make it big.

3. Get a full-time job.

Due to not being paid, a full-time internship would not be appropriate. I will be an 18 year old girl living with her parents, hoping to travel the world solo in 2016. For this to work, I need a job. Now I currently have two jobs, both lifeguarding at a leisure centre. However for a full-time position I will be looking for a job in retail in the city of Bath. Bath is a city of opportunity and class, and so I hope that working there will give me the inspiration I need when writing and finding a suitable internship. I am aware that points 2 and 3 will not give me much spare time, but by filling up my schedule I will ensure that as little time as possible is spent doing nothing. Because at the end of the day, where is that going to get me?

4. Work harder on my book.

As some of you will know, I began writing my first novel last summer. I am 50 pages in, and have not written a single sentence for it in 6 months. This upsets me, as during the summer I would spend hours drafting and redrafting - it was my creative outlook. Therefore when I finish my A-Levels and have much more time to think and be stress-free, I would like to begin to work very hard on it in my spare time, and hopefully at the same time as being something to do, it will allow me to hone my writing skills and impact on my blog, and everything else I am up to.

5. Write more regularly on 'Welcome to my reflection.'

This is the third blog I have written on since learning about the activity. At first I had a fashion and beauty blog, and then was asked to write for a lifestyle blog, and then began this one. I have not written as much as I would have liked to while I have had it, and am putting this misdemeanor down to the stress of exams and coursework. It was my creative outlook, my little piece of the internet. My baby! So following results day I would like to up my frequency of posts to at least one a week, in order to build my online portfolio, as it were, in anticipation of potential writing positions!

Next spring I will revise this, and can see what I have and haven't managed to achieve in 2016.

L xx

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LanCLS_hIo4 Bob Marley - Three Little Birds(because no one holds more optimism about the future than Bob, right?)

TRAVELLING AROUND THE WORLD???

What is the one thing that every 16 year old ever says when talking about a gap year?

"Yeah so in my gap year I'm going to travel around the world."

How many actually fulfill that desire? Not many.

The logistics of travelling the world, in a year, at 18 years old, don't quite add up. Many people forget to factor in the cost of flights, visas, insurance and all of the other extras that come with travelling. For this reason, many people don't end up travelling around the world, and twenty years later when they look back on their young adult life, it is the one thing they wish they had accomplished. When I tell people that next year I would like to travel the world, many of them shake their heads as if they are old, wise and knowledgeable about the inevitable downfall that will be my dreams next year. However this is where I am determined to prove them wrong. When I read blogs belonging to other people that are more successful, have more followers and have some sort of reputation, my eyes are consistently drawn to those advertising TRAVEL TRAVEL TRAVEL. The idea that I could combine two of my favourite pastimes; writing and sitting on a plane filled with excitement about where it is taking me, overwhelms me beyond belief. Furthermore - and at this I am jittery with exhilaration - some people even get paid for doing such a thing. I defy anyone who tells me this isn't the best job description in the entire world.

So this is what I am setting out to do. My idea in a tiny, tiny nutshell; work and build up a bank of savings, and then withdraw every penny and use it to travel to all of the places I want to most in the entire world. However here is where my plan differs from all the other naive 16 year olds - I will aim to write a post on a brand new travel blog for every single day I am away. That way, whether I end up getting noticed or not, I can do what I love for as long as I can and then use it when I get home to England to show people what I am capable of. Everyone I speak to tells me I'm either brave, idiotic, courageous, outlandish or simply stupid for going out on such a tiny limb, with not many places to jump to safety if I fall. If anything, these comments only spur on my enthusiasm. I want to prove everyone wrong. I want to try and spend as long as I can doing what I do best, and if it doesn't work out? Well then I can go back to being a lifeguard for a bit longer.

I have a quote on my bedroom wall that reads "If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough." My dreams scare the pants off me, which surely means that it is the right thing to do, and I will regret it for the rest of my life if I don't go out on this limb.

I hope you will all support me.

L xx



Louis Armstrong - What a Wonderful World
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2VCwBzGdPM

THE FUTURE

The Future. My Future. Those words have been haunting my mind, and deciding my life choices, for the last few years. When I was younger, at around the age of 5, the answering phrase to the question "What would I like to be when I grow up?" was simple. "A doctor, so I can make people better. Also a vet, so I can stroke animals all day. And I want to write books because I really like making up stories." I knew exactly how I wanted my life to go, and I figured that it was simple to achieve. However as we grow and mature into children, and teenagers, we are told that we need to be "realistic" in deciding our future careers, and that we need certain skills to progress in our chosen profession, of which we can pick just one. So twelve year old Liberty sat down in her bedroom and began to think about what she really wanted from a career, because it's always an advantage to think ahead, right? She was already under the impression that she was a young lady, and definitely old enough to make a decision as important as what she wanted to do as a job for the rest of my life. She couldn't be a doctor, because you had to be good at science for that and she really didn't like science at all. A vet seemed a plausible option, but there would always be the part where you had to clean out rabbit cages and that didn't seem very hygienic to be doing for the rest of her life. So that left a writer. Well, she did enjoy Literacy, and Mrs Johnson said her stories were very interesting and she always seemed to write so much more than everyone else in the class. So, she spent the next few years content in the belief that her future was sorted.

When you start secondary school, you reach a point where you begin to be asked the same question. Except this time, you are expected to give serious answers, with a defined pathway in mind to reach your goal of that job which has been approved by your teacher. Gone were the aspiring astronauts, the prospective painters and the dozens of doctors. Instead, we had teachers, engineers, plumbers, journalists and businessmen. At this point, 16 year old Liberty (having decided that being a writer was a precarious profession and didn't count as a real job) was set on passing her GCSEs and A-Levels with flying colours in order to become a first-class psychologist. Yes, that counted as a realistic job - you had to be clever, go to university and get a degree, and I found psychology interesting which was an added bonus. So, having achieved all As and A*s at GCSE she chose a range of academic subjects to continue at AS Level.

In year 12, big decisions such as university and jobs come around very quickly, as you start to be invited to open days and events to help you make up your mind where you are going post-A Level. At this point, choosing red-brick universities which excelled in the field of psychology seemed a very valid option, so score-chart in tow, 17 year old Liberty ran off to Bath, Cardiff, Southampton, Birmingham and many more to see what university life would have in store for her. It was very exciting. And when it started getting towards the end of the academic year, she had all the answers ready. "Where would you like to go?" Somewhere in the top 20 for the subject would be ideal. "What would you like to do?" Psychology of course, "What would you like to do after university?" ........ Ah. Her plan hadn't accounted for that question. She had ruled out the option of becoming a world-class psychologist, because for that you needed many, many years at university, and that would cost a lot of money and not leave much time for anything exciting. And apart from that, there wasn't much else to do with a psychology degree. Her plan had been foiled, and now she didn't know what to do.

She spent the summer holidays worrying about exam results, starting year 13, and The Future. She was back to square one, which wasn't a good place to be with only one year of schooling left. So yet again, she began to think. She thought about what had consistently been her favourite thing to do at school. She thought about how university isn't the best option for everybody, and most importantly she thought about the career options she had discarded when she was younger. She spoke to her parents, to her teachers, to her friends, and she thought long and hard for weeks and weeks. Maybe psychology was not what she really wanted to do. What was the point of studying a subject for three years, and then not using it in her future career? Why waste three years at university, when you can spend that time experiencing the world, and what role you play in it. And suddenly it came to her, just like it did all those years ago. Writing! She wanted to be a writer. Of course.

So that is the next step in my life. Figuring out how to make this work, how to be successful, and how to do it while having an amazing time.

Stay tuned.

L xx

Avicii - Wake Me Up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcrbM1l_BoI