What would I be doing if I wasn’t doing this? This question has two answers for me – one constrained by circumstance, the other by my imagination.

I’ll start with circumstance, because that’s where everything starts…

Three or Four years ago a finished a degree in Business with an extended Major in Advertising. I don’t have much evidence to support the following statement, but I think it was the truth - I was good in Advertising. In fact I maintain that I am no better in Psychology than I was in Advertising. The only difference is that this time round I’m doing a better job of reflecting it in my grades, reflecting it in the people I work with, the networks I make, and the goals I set.

Some part of me back then – the unmylenated adolescent, presumably – believed my raw talent would carry me over the line. These days I recognise what I thought of as ‘raw talent’ was in fact ego. At the very least, I think, I carried the Ego well.

And so I set out all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed into the world of advertising. Step by small step. I worked in an Agency for a while – but they were small and didn’t give me one iota of training, and when I inevitably made mistakes it reflected poorly and – to make a long story short – I was unable to keep that job. I spent the next 18 months applying for anything in Advertising, anything Marketing, anything Media. I had dozens of interviews; some with the best agencies in town. I was too green for the big guys, and I never quite caught the break with the little guys. I was always short-listed, but never made it over the line. In one instance I was called back a year later based solely on my interview and CV from the last encounter. Whatever the cause I never quite cut it.

The best job I managed to get was as a Valet in a Service Garage and Car Yard. I’m going to sound like a snob here, but I was above it.

Six months later I was enrolled in Psychology. It seemed as if the world was unwilling to bend to my will, I therefore needed something to ply it with. Education seemed my metaphorical crowbar.

And so here I am in Psychology – making damn sure people know what I’m trying to do. I read a story about the very first enlisted Psychologists for World War Two… No-one, not even the Psych’s, knew what they were supposed to do (during that period psychologists were big on dream interpretation and Freud’s Penis, and those flirting with experimental psychology were shocking rats and orphaning monkeys). And so the fellow in charge of the enlisted Psych’s gave them this brief:

“Become Indispensible”

I have adopted this as my personal mission statement. Find someone important and become indispensible; find other capable people and make yourself a valuable asset to them; make sure that people know your face, know your name, and know what you can do for them. And never be afraid to ask for what you want – half the time you get it, and the rest of the time they point you in the right direction.

And so here I am – optimistic and hopefully invaluable; I expected myself at this time to be earning decent money writing beer commercials. So in sense ‘this’ [Psychology and Blogging] is what I’m doing if I wasn’t living my previous life….

The second answer to the question of What would I be doing if I wasn’t doing this is… I don’t know. In a sense I was given a choice to do something else a few years ago. Advertising was not an option – and so everything else, in a sense, was.

I guess I could have become a cage fighter, a drug smuggler, an artist, a poet, or a ... whatever; but I chose education with no real end. I’ll know it when I get there, and I’ve had ideas along the way (among them was starting a blog…), but at the moment it’s a journey for the journey’s sake – because the last place I ended up wasn’t worth hanging around.

But I guess, if I had to answer what else I’d like to be doing – completely unconstrained - I’d run a little bar-and-tattoo-parlour in Portugal; I’d live on a self-sufficient property and write fiction and brew beer; I’d become a pirate, seize an Oil-Rig, and declare myself an independent nation; I would – physics permitting – live in sky-ship in the clouds, floating from nation to nation on the wind, sharing stories, taking fare from fellow travellers, and contemplating the heavens.

…buuutttt, I’m here. Wondering where the hell I’m going to find a decent N-Back programme that I can use in my current methodology, wondering if my next pay is going to be enough to cover rent + beer, and hoping that my approach of becoming indispensible lands me a job, money, and the respect of my peers. And you know what? I’m pretty damn sure I made the right decision. I don’t want to be anywhere else but here.

(Unless, of course, you do have some kind of cloud-faring vessel – a Zeplin, perhaps – and require additional crew. Consider me the Westley to your Dread Pirate Roberts of the Sky…)