Finding My Voice

I haven’t taken the time to sit down and write anything blog-post worthy in a very long time, unless it’s been for someone other than myself. I’ve become extremely efficient at helping other entities achieve success, authenticity, and establish a voice, and still I leave myself, my most important voice, in the shadows, kicked to the curb all battered and beaten.

I fill my time with work, work, a little more work, small amounts of sleep, even smaller doses of socializing, and more work. I joke I have an issue, and maybe I do, but truth be told, I’m a better me when I’m busy. Recently, I’ve learned the breaking point. I no longer refer to myself as “Super Woman”, because I have since proven to myself that I am in fact, human and capable of struggling, and breaking down just like everyone else.

Often times I stay awake journaling about the recent events in my life, or whatever strong emotion I consumed myself with that day. I never end up revisiting those journal entries like I tell myself I will. I’ve started and stopped so many articles, poems, stories, and simple nonsense that I ought to publish a book for each. It’s on my to-do list to share with the world the lessons and excitement from my summer internship at Fresh Produce, and my weekends DJing weddings, and my crazy life that fills the gaps, but more important than documenting all of that, is trusting that my voice is one that should be heard, and what that sounds like. That’s something I’m still working on.

After concluding my internship (which was the purest definition of kick a*s!), I’ve devoted the days before beginning my last semester as an undergraduate student to a total of 4 things:

1. Getting the Back to School issue of USF College Monthly to the printers

2. Blogging for Complete Weddings + Events

3. Giving mirandacain.com a facelift

4. Freshening my resume

…in that order.

Not that I’ve completed the other tasks in their entirety, but today I was finally able to sit down and give my resume some much needed attention. Instead of simply updating my work history and the content along with that, I decided I was going to completely redesign the look and feel of my resume. Naturally I found myself on Pinterest, loving every resume design that came up on my feed. If I liked all of these so much, how come creating a design for my own resume was so difficult? I pushed the thought away and went back to fumbling through design concepts in InDesign for another couple hours before it hit me.

Just the other day I finished reading Gordon Mackenzie’s Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace. This is only relevant because if you’ve read this book, what I’m about to say will make perfect sense. If you haven’t, it might take a few extra passes.

I liked all those Pinterest resume layouts because I’m supposed to like them. Pinterest manipulates the content based on my likes and other pins, so of course I was being fed things I was supposed to like. BUT! The designs of these resumes weren’t based on the content a future employer is going to be wow-ed by, it was the hairball.

Mackenzie explains, “Well, two hairs unite. then they’re joined by another. And another. And another. Before long, where there was once nothing, this tangled, impenetrable was has begun to form” (pg. 29).

I’m not a graphic designer. I’m a communicator who happens to know just enough about the Adobe Creative Suite to layout a magazine, design simple logos, and edit a video news package. But, in something as defining as a resume (for my first real job after graduating college), you’d think I’d be in control, or at least want to be, of the image I’m putting in front of someone I’m asking to hire me.

Mackenzie’s book also talks about how creativity is suppressed by our culture, and not that I need to get too detailed about that either, but a huge learning moment happened for me today when I became frustrated with the design of my resume.

Instead of making excuses about not being a designer, or an artist, or someone with creativity initiative, I’m me. I have my own voice and that’s exactly what my resume should be.