Author’s Note: First off, this is not the original article I wrote two years back. I removed the original because I felt that it contained too many negative and bitter elements. In accordance with my goal to maintain a positive outlook on life, I have rewritten this article to reflect that change in my attitude.

Two years ago, I read a very powerful blog article by Steve Pavlina, Love Your Work or Don’t Work at All. That article’s content really hit home. By all means, please read on.

I used to work in the IT (Information Technology) industry. I fixed computers (PCs and Macs), solved network connectivity issues, cleaned viruses, etc. I worked really hard, provided value, and generally worked towards making work a better place to, well, work.

Now, I’m a pretty good tech. Despite that, in all honesty, I’ve had some really bad experiences in my field. I’ve been yelled at, made fun of, belittled, lied about, lied to, and backstabbed. (I know, join the club, right?) On top of that, I’ve never really been happy with my pay. My salary always seemed to hover significantly lower than the median salary for entry level IT workers in my area, in spite of my several years of experience. (I know there’s a club for this, too.)

Because of my previously negative mindset, I took those bad experiences very personally, which led to bitterness, which in turn reinforced that very same negative mindset. A vicious circle, as they say.

When I lost my previous IT job, I became extremely frustrated with my so-called career path. The economy was beginning to sour, and jobs were slowly becoming scarce. Shortly after a very disappointing IT job interview, I ended up in a totally different industry altogether – hospitality.

Now, I didn’t have much interest in building a career in the hospitality industry. A close friend told me about this particular opening, and since the pay was decent, I took the job. My intention was to hold this position until I was able to get my hands on a “good” IT job. I continued interviewing. And interviewing. And interviewing. Over a year went by, and I didn’t receive a single offer. I started becoming even more disappointed and bitter.

Because of my negative and bitter attitude, and my lack of interest in the job, my work quality started to suffer. I was letting my pride get the better of me, by thinking things like: “Why do I have to do this kind of work for a living? I should be building computer networks, and fixing technical problems! Ugh!” My attitude was definitely poisoning my work at that point. Eventually, a coworker pointed out to me that my work was slipping.

It was then I realized that something had to change. I either had to quit, or somehow change my attitude.

Of course, quitting was not an option.

Okay, so how about I go about changing my attitude? Well, I need to find some aspect of the job that I like somehow…

But I couldn’t think of anything. Despite my initial cluelessness, I refused to give up. I regularly devoted some mental energy to thinking  about that positive aspect. Then it hit me -

I like the people I work with, and the people I work for!

I think the negativity in my mind was a hurdle I had to clear before making that realization. But then I could see additional positive aspects of my job:

I can live on the income from my job!

I feel respected at my job!

(Yeah, I know it sounds really corny, but bear with me here.)

I like the location of my job!

My job constantly reminds me of my long term goals!

However, I had totally overlooked a very important detail…

This hospitality job really forced me to get out of my comfort zone.

This leads me into a long term goal I’ve had for quite a while –

To become a more outgoing and friendly person – a people person.

By nature, I am very introverted and a little on the shy side. I have always wanted to further develop my social skills to better interact with people, and to feel more comfortable around them. This job provided the perfect opportunity to achieve that goal.

And like a dummy, I came very close to throwing it all away, all because of a negative attitude.

That reminds me of a fortune cookie fortune I got once: “It’s your attitude, not your aptitude, which determines your altitude.” (I actually have a separate article about that here.) In short, it means your attitude determines where you go in life.

So far, results have definitely been forthcoming. I no longer have bitter feelings towards my job. I am also slowly becoming more friendly and comfortable around people. It will continue to take time and practice, but I am on my way. That is what really counts. Well, that and striving to free yourself of negative attitudes.

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Well, where to start? Many things have happened since I blogged last. Well, I’ll start with what’s newest!

I have finally got the Titanium Knights character profiles up. The profiles are not totally finished yet, however. I still need to draw a profile pic for each character. One of the things holding up the pics is my uniform design process. I want the uniforms to be just so, but that is slowing me down. At least the ideas are simple, and once actually designed, should be simple to draw repeatedly. The profiles so far can be found here. Don’t be fooled – there are more characters in the story than what is currently shown, but I don’t want to reveal them all just yet. You’ll have to wait until the story unfolds.

Speaking of character profiles, I have also published character profiles for… The AntiBalls Force. I’m not making a big production out of the AntiBalls Force yet, because of, well, the the lack of time I have to work on them. I will not give up on them, however, as they have brought me to tears via laughter on many an occasion. I have at least three comic pages in mind for their introduction story. You can observe their profiles here. Yes, in the toilet section!

On a side note, I have decided to change up the production process for the Titanium Knights Episode 3 comic. Originally, I had planned to use digital scenery software to generate the backgrounds, as seen on page two here. After using it, and seeing the results, I was not totally pleased, but wasn’t exactly sure why. The backgrounds were beautiful! Then it hit me -

It wasn’t really my original creation.

In the past, I’ve always drawn my own backgrounds for comics, and always got a sense of satisfaction from doing so. So why did I decide to change to something else?

I believe that it was the pressure of being timely. I’m a little self conscious about being slow when working on my personal projects, so, as a shortcut, I tried scene creation software. Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not knocking anyone who uses such software. I am simply deciding not to use it for my comics because it doesn’t fit in with my artistic vision. My motivation for using scene creation software was misguided – timeliness vs. artistic vision.

So, I am officially removing pressure from myself by eliminating my artificial deadlines. In doing so, I empower myself to work on my projects in the proper manner – to simply express my creativity just for the sake of the enjoyment of doing so. (I hope that makes sense! lol) Everything will be either hand drawn or created in an art software program. So, anyone who wants to know when Titanium Knights Episode 3 will be done, I’ll tell you.

When it’s done.

Another thing I will do to lessen any pressure on myself is… not focus on the profitability of my site. Now, I definitely want to earn money doing something I enjoy, but if I mysteriously received a message from the future informing me that my site would never make any money, would I quit and shut down my site?

Absolutely not.

I will make sure my focus is only on my artistic vision – not timeliness, nor profit.

Idealistic? Darn straight.

Realistic? Maybe not. Well then, I will just take control of my own reality.

Thanks for reading.

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