Now Is the Time for All Good Men & Women...

...to think about what they would most like to be doing. Some people have time to think about this because they are out of work or retired. Others have to dream in small intervals between their many daily tasks. Use the Internet as a great big Dream Machine. With zero or very little up-front cost, you can set up a blog or a web site and present yourself to the world as whatever it is that you would like to be. Then, you can search the web for the additional knowledge that you would need to be that new identity, and you can communicate to or with others in that field. For instance, if I were to pull out of the air a desire to be a chef specializing in Chinese food with a Mexican twist to it, I might set up a blog or a web site called Chinexico. Then I could study both Chinese and Mexican cooking and test out some recipes such as Sweet and Sour Tamales, or Egg Rolls with Flour Tortilla wrappers. If the recipes turned out to work well, I could publish them on my site, try writing a new Chinexican cookbook, or open a specialized restaurant that someday might turn into a chain of such places. This particular dream might not be too farfetched, because tortillas and egg roll wrappers and mu shu pancake wrappers are all quite similar. Some Chinese restaurants use very hot peppers in their cooking as do Mexican restaurants. Both ethnicities use rice (arroz)...You can try out your dream in any category you want, but you will probably need a twist on what is already available in order to make your innovation something special and something about which you can get to know more than most others. This approach gives you a fun enterprise which could turn out to have some economic or at least self-confidence value. It also might turn out to be something that is worth noting on your resume as you look for new work. If you are out of work and looking for a new position, this exercise will give you something useful to say that you have been doing since leaving your last job. It is easier to land a new job if you haven't had a long empty period since your last one.