Right Brain: Creativity, Intuition, Images, Color, Music, Expressing and Recognizing Emotions
Left Brain: Language, Logic, Critical Thinking, Numbers, Reasoning
I'm a huge nerd. I've always been good at math and memorizing facts. I love words and I love to read. I was always on the honor roll and straight A's were nothing out of the ordinary. In college, my favorite classes were Bio and Calculus. I always did well in English classes, but didn't enjoy the subjectivity that came with it. I majored in Business Economics and minored in Accounting. And straight out of college, I started a good job working as an accountant in Orange County. I was definitely not an over achiever though, fact is, it all just came pretty easily to me. So yes, you can easily say I grew up very "left-brained."
That life I lived, of routines and numbers, of stability and little freedom. Wasn't that the dream? To get a good job, make good money, make your parents proud because you can pay your own bills and buy your own groceries?
I remember starting to think, "Is this it? Is this what the rest of my life is going to be like?" The same long days with only the anticipation of the weekend to keep you going. The surprising amount of exhaustion you feel from sitting in a chair and staring at a screen 8 hours a day. The lack of time to enjoy the things you love...
After an unfortunate (or fortunate) turn of events, I was suddenly granted all the free time to really enjoy and explore the things I loved to do most. In other words, I lost my job.
All my life, I was discouraged from anything too "right-brained." When I was young, I wanted to be an artist. I bet you can guess the response I always got: Artists don't make money. I often find myself wondering what my artistic abilities would be like, had someone chosen to foster and nurture the talent I had as a child.
And isn't that the way it always is? Schools favor the left and downplay the right. Subjects like math and science are considered more valuable over more creative subjects, like english or music. And why? So we can keep churning out drones to run the numbers and continue this monotonous life? So we can keep doing things we hate to make money to buy things we don't need? Maybe. Well I decided that that life was no longer for me.
So I took a chance. I decided to dive head first into my passion: photography.
Admittedly, I was a little lost at first. Photography has been a passion of mine for a few years, but I wasn't sure exactly what type of photography I wanted to actively pursue. I was constantly doubting my abilities as a photographer, and I would go back and forth about whether I was making the right decision.
And then a trip to the Philippines changed my life. I met relatives I didn't even know existed on my father's side. I had cousins that were just like me. Smart AND artistic. I even have a cousin who practiced accounting, but after finding how unhappy he was, decided to dedicate his life to music. My father's siblings told me stories about what he was like as a child, how intelligent he was, AND how artistic he was, things that I wasn't given the chance to hear my father tell me himself. Suddenly everything became clear, my left and right brained abilities weren't random. My uncle's words still ring clearly in my head: "It's in your blood."
That constant self-doubt that always plagued me was gone. I knew now that everything I wanted out of life was possible. This trip also inspired the type of photography I wanted to pursue, a fusing of two of my passions: travel photography. A decision that would set the tone for what would become the best year of my life, 2012, a year that I've been successfully able to document with this blog.
Once I became confident in pursuing my passion and stopped trying to conform to what other people wanted me to be, things started to fall into place. I can't even begin to describe to you how well things started working out. In the span of one year, I've traveled to 5 different countries, 6 if you include my travels within the US. (And I like to think that I've built up a pretty mean portfolio from it, www.colleenibanez.com) I started to meet all the right people and reconnect with others. I took hold of every opportunity that came my way.
"You will discover the nature of your particular genius when you stop trying to conform to your or other people's models, learn to be yourself, and allow your natural channel to open."
It came to a point when things were so good, too good in fact that I felt like too much good karma was coming my way. I began to tell my story to anyone who would listen, in hopes that I could inspire them to do the things they love, and to spread all the good karma I had. My mom wasn't safe from my rants either, she would constantly joke that I would become a motivational speaker. People who have known me for a long time could see the change in me. Some people embraced it, while others thought I was going crazy. But so be it! I was happier than I'd ever been, and I refused to let people stomp out the fire that had been ignited in me.
This blog isn't only about my travels, its about this crazy personal journey I've chosen to embark upon. I know it's going to be difficult, and there will likely be times I want to give up. In fact, I've already lived through those times. But here's the thing... when you hit an obstacle doing something you don't love doing, it's so much harder to pick yourself back up, to convince yourself to keep moving forward. When these obstacles arise when you're doing something you already love to do, all you need to do is keep doing what it is you love to do!
By focusing on the capabilities of my right-brain, I've been able to find the beauty in life, instead of over analyzing every move I made as I used to. I dove into my creative side. I started to draw again, to paint, to write. (I've even developed a project that will hopefully become a side business venture. Another fusing of two things that I love, but I'll save that for another post.) Now almost a year later, I'm back in the Philippines, where this whole journey began. And I've been able to stay true to what I promised myself at the start of this year.
I can't help but think that the decisions I've made have been so right. Because even if I find that this doesn't work out for me, I'll be able to say that I spent 2 years traveling the world, literally chasing my dreams, one step at a time, one foot after the other.
...with my favorite pair of boots on my feet! I decided to resole them instead of buying a new pair. I couldn't part with them after I had realized that they've traveled the world too.
They've seen the hilly streets of San Francisco.
The bright lights and big screens in Times Square
The haunted cemeteries of New Orleans.
The Great Wall of China.
The Canals on the Rocks in Western Australia.
They've even bushwalked through the mesmerizing Blue Mountains of Australia.
Who knows where they'll end up next, but I'm excited as hell to find out.
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