The Velocity Of

I chose the name of this blog for a specific reason- ‘The Velocity Of’, with the tagline ‘Finding the velocity of success.’ I intend for this blog to help me in the effort of forging my own path for success.

A lot of times, people talk about the future, and success, like it’s some sort of an accident that we happen upon in life. It’s something that we’re both with, or we achieve success by luck. When I was younger, I bitterly believed in same lines of thought- that since I wasn’t born into some sort of TV-worthy success story, that it was either luck, or the gutter for me at best.

Of course, the reality is that being born into a loving and, though at times difficult, supportive family in the United States of America is being lucky, and is being born into success, and I don’t want to discount those advantages and privileges by any means. I only mean to say that when I was younger, the reality of my own privilege was largely invisible to someone as self-centered and egocentric as an intelligent teenager.

I’ve come to understand that success is something that we make with a combination of hardwork and talent- but even a lot of talent comes from hard work. As lazy and despondent and depressed as I was during the last few weeks of unemployment, and even before when I was living miserably overseas because of money issues and my unpleasant work environment, I let all of my talents and hobbies go fallow, unused and wasted.

The last week has been incredibly invigorating. Things finally began a turn around when I got a call on Wednesday asking me to come in the following day for an interview at a call center downtown. I was wary after interviewing a few other places, so I accepted without letting my hopes get too high. I did well in the interview, and went in for a group orientation the day after the interview. I had been offered a job after two months of miserable unemployment.

Things have been snowballing since then. My first day of training, I was asked to take a logic test after expressing interest in their IT department. I managed to score so well that they put me into training with their IT department immediately, along with a modest raise and skipping the usual 2-3 month waiting period for adjustment before moving agents into departments.

I also have an interview for Kaplan, the world’s gold standard in test prep for a part-time position teaching the GRE. It’s the final, third interview with them and I’m both nervous and excited. I’m feeling excited and enthusiastic, and I’m going to ride this wave of enthusiasm into a really positive and exciting success.

Since the first interview with my call center, I immediately felt buoyed. I finally started this blog, a project that I’ve wanted to begin for a while. I started my personal writing up again, began some non-fiction reading and signed up for a bunch of free Massively-Open Online Courses over at Coursera.com. I feel great, and the more steps towards positivity that I take, the further I want to go.

It’s all a fantastic reminder that in a lot of ways, we build our own futures. This blog is dedicated to my journey. I’m no longer searching for the path to success- that’s something I build myself, out of my own blood, sweat, and tears. Instead, I’m searching for the velocity of success- not the road, but the rate.

Success is my state of mind, and I may be crawling right now, but it’s a hell of a lot better than no movement at all- and it’ll be no time at all before I’m running, and then flying.