What you're supposed to do is what you love to do.

So much for updating my blog regularly.

I always do this: commit to blogging, keep up with it for a little while, and eventually get too busy, preoccupied, lazy, uninspired. This time, I'm not making any binding or non-binding commitments in the hopes that I will blog regularly on my own accord.

So since my last blogpost of naive euphoria, a lot has happened! A person can really grow up and change a lot in eight months.

The most drastic change I've made so far is quitting my job at Allison & Partners two weeks ago. If you've talked to me since March 2010, you know that my life's path and perspective changed drastically after volunteering in El Progreso, Honduras. Poverty is a personal struggle for me, not because I've lived through it, but because my Honduran family continues to live through it. To go from working in the nonprofit industry solely focused on social change, to the corporate world more focused on personal gain, was a drastic change I naively did not anticipate.

During my internship at Allison & Partners, I learned a lot about myself, life, and my passions. Among many other things, I discovered:

1. I need to be active. I need to interact with people, be on my feet, play with children, dance, sing, build, perform... furiously moving only my fingers as I sit on my ass for nine hours does not count as physical exertion and it definitely does not motivate me to wake up every morning.

2. I am a hard worker. As an intern, I wore many hats: administrative assistant, printer expert, book binder, product stocker, receipt scanner/taper, minutes recorder, notetaker, secretary, brainstormer, magazine delivery girl, mail delivery girl, account coordinator... the list goes on. To be completely frank, I did not want to do 98% of the menial tasks I was responsible for every day, but I did them with a smile on my face and made the tastiest damn lemonade out of the lemons I was given. I know it might be hard to believe, but I actually enjoyed news monitoring because I learned about industries that I never thought I gave two shits about or could ever understand, like technology. If I had never been the sole news monitor for the Dropbox team, I would never have discovered that Steve Jobs is one of my heroes.

3. I love performing. After sitting at my desk for nine hours, I was mentally and physically drained. But there would have to be a tornado between me and my three-hour choir practice or hour-long dance class in order for me to go home directly after work. Pushing myself creatively, musically, and physically was imperative to my happiness, and it's what forced me out of my bed every morning.

In short, Allison & Partners taught me to pursue my dreams, work hard, and always think positively, and I will always be grateful for the experience.

I had thought about quitting for several months before I actually did it, and knew that the corporate world was not meant for me (nor was I meant for it). But I became quite complacent with receiving a steady paycheck, not worrying about money, and living comfortably, so I stayed. Everyone told me not to quit without another job, and I followed that advice until I came to a point where my happiness could no longer be compromised. I had to do what I felt was right, which was to chase my passion for people, music, and creativity, and I had to be prepared to face the consequences of a less predictable life. Although being unemployed and searching for a job in such a terrible economy has not been a walk in the park, I refuse to compromise or settle.

After reading articles and blogs, watching videos and documentaries, and doing some serious soul-searching, I've realized that I was put on this earth to do great things, and I might as well be dead if I'm going to waste my days living comfortably. I've always been a dreamer, and I don't know why I briefly fell into conformity... probably because it's easy, risk-free, and what the majority of the world does. Doing what you love may be a riskier way of living, but no one in the history of the world became great by living a comfortable, risk-free life. Steve Jobs quit college after four months, slept on the floors of his friends' dorm rooms, built Apple out of a garage, and in the end, created software and products that revolutionized technology. He dreamed big, risked big, and in the end, it paid off.

Jaded people say that it's stupid to continue chasing your dreams beyond childhood. They say, "It's time to grow up, get real, and get a real job." Yet most of these people are stuck in these so-called "real" jobs for which they feel hatred, dislike, or worst of all, indifference. I don't understand why people would want to wake up and live mediocre lives fueled by hatred, dislike, or indifference if they had the option, ability, intelligence, and opportunity to do otherwise. If you don't have serious financial binds or family members to care for, what is stopping you from chasing your dreams other than yourself? I realized that the only person standing in my way of chasing my dreams was me. It wasn't my mom, my dad, or all the people who advised me to follow the status quo. I had let other people's thoughts affect and warp my own. So from personal experience, I plead: don't let it happen to you.

If your passion is music, dance, technology, writing... hell, if you get really jazzed about picking up trash because there's so much of it all over our damn city, then do it. Do the things that truly make you feel alive. Live your life so you don't look back on it and regret, asking yourself, "What if?" I know that my life is too important to squander, not helping, not singing, not dancing, not performing, and not innovating.

That's why I joined the Brooklyn Community Chorus. I'll be singing the solo for "Joyful, Joyful" (the Sister Act 2 version) next Friday in the Jingle Bell Jamboree, a holiday concert held in Brooklyn where locals and families gather to watch musical performances. I'm also performing on New Year's Eve and ringing in the new year with Brooklynites who were too lazy to venture into Manhattan and watch Beyonce or Rihanna perform. Making a choice to do the thing I've always loved to do led to other opportunities, and these small successes will continue to drive me to sing. They will serve as reminders to never give up on my dreams.

Leaving my job of comfort, security, and stability has taught me to trust my intuition, do what I love, and never settle... actually, Steve Jobs taught me that posthumously through his Stanford University commencement speech in 2005, but quitting made me understand his words so much more clearly. If you haven't watched it yet, you need to watch it on YouTube now.

If you're confused, in a rut, at a crossroads, or whatever other terms we have for "don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do with my life," first, figure out what you love to do. Do you love to cook, build, sew, paint, fix, farm, organize? What you're supposed to do is what you love to do. And if anyone tries to stray you away from what you love to do, turn that opposition and negativity into fuel towards chasing your dreams even harder.