The First Step

The hardest part of starting any endeavor is the very first step – the first piece of your own work you create and put out there for the world to see. Once you break that seal, it all downhill from there. So here we are!

Who am I?

I’m Makenzie. I’m twenty-six, have a cat, a dog, a turtle, a few hermit crabs, and many goldfish. I love video games, telling stories, encouraging others, and a well-made sandwich. I like reading and watching films but my poor partner has to listen to every qualm I have with them, which leads to a lot of “okay I’m just gonna pause it real quick.” It’s never quick and it’s rarely the last time. I’m always looking at the bigger picture; the whys and hows of a story are just as important to me as all the other things happening in a narrative. This mindset follows me throughout all parts of my life. What are the reasons? Why do we do the things we do? How do we accomplish something? Most importantly, does it work? Does it make sense?

The Things I Do

Work, hobbies, skills, desires. We all have them. I currently work retail management; it combines my love for helping others with my selfish desire for new clothes. My hobbies include video games, jewelry-making, music, and creative writing. Working out, gardening, drawing, and more utilitarian crafting start the list of hobbies I wish I had more passion for (or in the case of gardening, not killing every plant I own – including the cactus). I’m an expert organizer when I want to be, but my tidying is something that needs improvement.

I have a deep desire to understand how things work. It affects how I interact with people; each person has their own style, their own mannerism, their own internal logic. Each part of our life has its own logic. The satisfaction I get from understanding these inner workings – be it of people, technology, design – drives me on a path of discovery. I love accumulating fun facts about how things work and why they do what they do.

The Dream

Like most people, my dream is to fund my life doing what I love. This is one of the first steps towards that goal – that dream. You never get anywhere if you never step outside of your comfort zone. I love connecting with people. I also love creating – be it videos, stories, images, or conversational. I’ve experimented with a lot of different mediums over the years but the ever-present blogging was never something I’d considered. “More traditional” was always what my mind tried to tell me – getting a short story published, recording and editing videos, painting or drawing for competitions; those were the paths my mind thought I had to follow.

Fortunately we live in a day and age of no limits. The first step can be anything I want it to be. I can have as many first steps as I want. Even if I never make that six-figure income every blogger post on Pinterest talks about, at least I’m doing what I love. Here’s to the first step!