If I had to choose a word to define myself it would be multiplicity.
After all, like every typical gemini, my interests and abilities have always been so many that I don’t even know if I can remember them all. From music and drawing to those school subjects that most of people usually dislike, I was super excited to learn (always!).
And that obviously made me burn my head when it came to choosing the profession, mainly because I had to align the choice with the need to work full time and have to exclude my artistic side, which was always my strenght and was born with me.
But at last I chose. Production Engineer with emphasis and civil construction, specialist in environmental management and master in urban engineering. Before and during university I worked in sales, administrative area and with projects; and after graduating I went back to the quality safety and environmental management, and also teaching.
But that choice never seemed to fulfill me. Not because I did not like engineering. Quite the opposite. I continued (and continue to) find engineering fascinating, but working for companies was always frustrating and seemed to limit the potential that this profession represented to me.
I felt my creativity stifled and working in the environmental management area of companies was far away from the purpose that led me to choose this area of expertise. And the only thing that still made sense to me in this area was teaching (actually one of my biggest passions). So at least I could do something with a bigger meaning than purely to make money (not that I do not want that too, let’s be clear).
Faced with this, I decided that I wanted to do a PhD abroad. So I went to Ireland for a year to improve my English to be able take a test of proficiency, and of course, to experience life in another country.
But what I found there was way beyond English. There I found myself!
There I also discovered that this encounter only occurred because I began to listen to that little voice (called intuition) that tells us to try some different things. And that we usually avoid because another little voice (called mind) tells us that it will not work.
And I discovered that the more we listen to this daring voice, the more satisfied we are with our choices and the better we are at differentiating which one of them is speaking.
I also discovered Yoga and meditation. And with these tools I discovered that silence and solitude (which is not the same thing as solitude – important to explain) are the best way to access intuition, and that traveling – especially traveling alone – creates the perfect environment for this.
And after all these discoveries, I realized that it was not too late to change direction. That I could still reinvent myself, try other paths, new combinations of my abilities.
And since then I’ve started experimenting. Photography, yoga, another long travel – by the way, started because of engineering :), the birth of the blog that has been in the field of ideas for ages (besides with a different approach), and several other little things which will soon be included in this mix that is starting to compose my new professional path.
At the moment I am living / traveling in Asia, but I am from Paraná, a state in the South of Brazil. My hometown is Umuarama, but sometimes I forget that and I consider Maringá my hometown because I spent most of my life there.
I have already changed school and home som many times that I do not even dare to guess, and only moving to a different citie has been more than 10 times. But nowadays it is in Rio de Janeiro that I feel at home and when I finish my adventure in Asia, that’s where I intend to go.
At least for a while!