Experimenting with my Niche

I’m trying to find what I love to do.

As I’ve gone through life, I feel like I’ve done a pretty decent job in being honest with myself. I stick to things that make me feel happy… but then what happens is that it somehow becomes my identity, like it must be my destiny and I have to stick with it until my last breath if I want to die happy.

True happiness is probably an endless pursuit - I’m sure you’ve heard somewhere that it’s all about the journey, and I totally agree with that. I think a huge part of that journey is learning about yourself and your changing preferences.

Let’s take my BSc for example; I decided in 10th grade (10 years ago) that food science was what I was going to do for the rest of my life. Kinda crazy. I was married to this idea that this is the perfect thing for me and I loved absolutely everything about it.

It might sound like I’m alluding to how my BSc was a huge mistake here, but don’t get me wrong, I still have a huge passion for food science! During the day I work as a Food Product Developer, and it still feels illegal that I have an actual job where I get to explore the way food works. I just wanted to share something I experienced as a result of sticking myself to my 10th grade idea: I found myself stuck. I ended up being discouraged when I came across parts of my field that I didn’t like.

I thought myself into this black and white space, where I felt like an imposter every time I did something I didn’t absolutely love.

Turns out you’re allowed to dislike parts of your passion if you’re still actually willing to call it a passion. These days, I’ve been trying to push myself into new experiences. I’m finding more things that I love to do and more that I don’t really like doing. The difference now is that instead of labeling my likes and dislikes so firmly, I’m trying to lean towards the things I enjoy doing and seeing what happens. This way I’m still giving myself some flexibility to change my mind.

I’ll share some advice with you that I'm constantly trying to remember for myself...

Experience random stuff and see what happens.

Put yourself in random situations and be more mindful of how you really feel.

Don’t be afraid to change what you’re passionate about, because the only person you owe anything to is yourself, and I think it’s pretty cool that you’re letting yourself do what makes you happy.

Right now I’m loving my experience connecting art, food AND science together with this business of mine. I’m going to keep doing that for a while because it makes me happy. If you all want to hang around to see what I'm up to, I'd love to share! I don't know what I'll be doing next, but I know it'll be weird, and I know it'll be awesome.

Peace and love,

Shanisha