Learning to flow

Hello there! I know. I have been lacking communications this whole year and I'm failing miserably to keep up with the Giveaways. I won't lie to you, this year has been challenging for me and I don't even know where to start. As tough as they appear on the surface, the challenges I've been facing have been good ones. Like bitter pills, I'm better off facing these things for my own good.

Since the inception of this business and becoming a mother at the same time in 2008, I have been charging forward like a warrior. But you see, that's just it. I don't want to be a warrior fighting wars. Right there was the problem in my fundamental attitude toward life. This year, I have stopped charging. Dropping down my weapons and taking off my armors. It has been about taking a break, breathe and reevaluate how I have been conducting business. It's time to make some changes. 

Most likely though, you may not see big drastic changes happening with this business but I hope that any small changes that you may see with Decoylab would be good. In the midst of what seems like a "burnt out" experience it was clear to me that I love what I do. As far as my artistic route goes, "Making things I like" is so ideal and I am grateful to have this outlet to express myself creatively and have meaningful exchange with my customers. There's incredible satisfaction and the feeling of fulfillment when i make something I like and someone loves it enough to hand me money and we complete the exchange in a "happy, complete and whole" way. What customer pays me allow me to continue making my work. At the most fundamental level, this is really my ideal exercise of how "Business" should operate - that it is about humans interacting and it is about us engaging in good feelings through the exchanges.

I am also reminded that this business - my business is as unique as me. Nothing is predetermined and anything is possible. I realized that much of my "unhappiness" with my life, the underlining frustrations i was feeling had to do with myself in conflict with the status quo. You know. The subtle pressures that you may feel pressing down on you from the society or unspoken codes that you try to adapt by "appearing" to be successful on surface. (or try to be different by taking the opposite stance to conformity) And by being "successful," it's not the success that you define for yourself but rather fragmented ideals and beliefs you've picked up from everywhere else. I found those things within myself and they were making me extremely unhappy. To my surprise, I was striving for convention completely unconsciously. So consciously, I decided to embrace un-convention. Drop the status quo. Drop whatever I thought I had to do. Whoever I thought I had to be. Underneath it all is someone very familiar, someone I intimately know.. which is - Me. Who is quite small but at the same time can be very powerful. I'm a breathing, heart pumping raw meat just like everyone else! Totally vulnerable. Something shifted after I accepted my vulnerability. Yes I am small. And yes I love that smallness. We live in the world that's so obsessed with fame, attention, celebrities and the games of "being better than" others and that's not what I'm about - I'd rather see realness, flaws, smallness. I'd rather talk about mistakes I made. nothing wrong with that and i'm not ashamed of it. Oh yes, dropping armors. I don't want to fight with life any more. I want to flow with it. Embracing its tenderness and celebrate life's little insignificant moments. Love my constantly dirty fingernails. I will never have pretty manicured nails and I'll most likely never going to wear dress to work. I can't do my work like that.

Thanks for listening me ranting. I hope to use this blog section to give you more background, meaningful content rather than sharing superficial news. Writing is totally not my forte so it takes a lot of time for me so it may not happen as often as I like. But I hope to make this something that's useful/meaningful if you are in the same boat as I am - having your own business and trying to navigate in this confusing world.

Love to you all,
Maiko