I‘m not quite sure of exactly who I am.
I like to think I’m an open person, but I’m fairly deliberate in my communication so I can come across as closed off or reserved. I try to communicate efficiently but I think people sometimes see that as practiced.
I’m socially awkward—working on it—but I would say being closed off is one of the biggest misconceptions about me.
I don’t try to keep things private, and I’m always happy to share experiences and opinions, or ideas. I worry though, that I’m boring as hell so I probably tell fewer personal stories than others. Let’s hope for your sake, I’m not…
Who is Joscelyn Kate?
…
A different kind of freedom so many people didn’t see.
The Distance was Good for Me
Social distancing has been hard in a lot of ways. Being without family and friends, regular routines, workplace interactions, and the general buzz of a crowd for an extended period of time has been emotionally draining for most of us.
But for some, the distance created a moment where we could grow into ourselves. Social interactions are draining when you’re an introvert. The world is not set up to welcome introverts. School, work, and everything in-between is done in crowds, with people, and lots of involvement.
There are few opportunities for introverts to thrive, so we often have to make…
Multiple streams of income are the new savings account.
Do people dream of becoming freelancers like they dream of becoming astronauts or doctors? I wanted to be a lawyer.
My whole life was designed around becoming a lawyer. I went to college, planned law school, networked to become an intern. I’ve been cultivating relationships with lawyers since I was 16 years old. My entire focus in life had been on becoming someone who had an un-losable job, made so much money they never worried about a thing, and did cool Matlock-type investigations (I realize that last part was unrealistic— it dawned on me during my senior year of college.)
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And how it’ll make me more money (plan included).
My writing is sporadic. I’ve been trying to blog consistently since 2016 but for some reason I haven’t found my stride. Likely because everything I do is inspired by — or handicapped by — my emotions. If I’m not feeling wild about an idea, I’ll do something else until I do feel wild. I’m sure you can imagine what happens if that feeling never comes.
I’ve been freelancing for a while and it was a great way to transition away from traditional employment. However, in some sense, I still have bosses and for me that’s not sustainable. …
Even though every single one I’ve submitted has been rejected.
When I first heard about Medium in a Facebook group for copywriters, everyone talked about submitting their articles to publications and which publications would help you reach a bigger audience.
Since I was desperately trying to make money online so I could stop going to an office job, I figured writing on Medium and submitting through publications was the way to go.
The very first article I wrote, I didn’t submit anywhere. I was too nervous and felt too self-conscious about my writing and my opinions in general. But then I was invited to submit my article to a publication…
Improve your writing by avoiding the overuse of common words.
Someone once said something about writing a million words to find your voice. I agree it takes at least that many although I haven’t reached the milestone myself yet so I couldn’t say with any certainty. The words you write matter though. Writing ‘the’ one million times isn’t going to improve your writing. Each time you write, there should be some improvement from the last time.
Sometimes there’s no way to avoid the use of certain words, but that’s no reason to overuse them either.
Common words make your writing passive, boring, and can cause you to run out of…
Allowing unchecked content into your life is targeting your happiness.
The pandemic is on its way to an end. We’re on the precipice of the new normal that many have been speculating about… will masks be a seasonal thing? Will we have more pandemics? Will in-person interactions cease to be commonplace or the predominant form of human interaction?
We still don’t know. But you don’t have to hold your breath.
Your new normal has already started. We choose what happens in our lives, we choose who we interact with, we make our own health decisions, we decide our priorities. …
I realized we create the doom-scrollers and I don’t want to be one of those anymore either.
The year 2020 was going to be the best year of my life.
In 2019 I had my second daughter, quit my job to freelance full-time, and my older daughter was to be starting pre-K. Little did I know, I’d get pregnant in December of 2019, while my second was only 7 months old and that a year-long pandemic was right around the corner.
I don’t know if it was denial, lack of awareness, or the pure speed of life with two kids but I had no idea I was pregnant until the end of February— nearly 3 months in—but…
Even if you love them, you’re not entitled.
Recently I was in a debate chat where a discussion was centered around whether or not a trans person has an obligation to disclose their birth sex if they’ve surgically transitioned, or mention their current body organs, if they’ve not.
“Do you think it’s wrong for a trans person to never tell their partner they are trans?”
The question was phrased basically like “Do you think it’s wrong for a trans person to never tell their partner they are trans.”
Uh, like… what? What the af kind of relationships have these question askers and answerers been in? What even is…
“What if you had it all, but nobody to call?”
Sometimes it feels like we’re standing in our own cubes with a glass wall around us. People are looking at us, but they can’t see us.
It’s like they can’t come inside the cube and truly understand all of us, they can only observe us from the outside. And the inside feels lonely.
We try to describe our inside so people can understand who we are, so they can confirm they see it, but words don’t do feelings justice. We talk around our feelings but we never get it exactly right.
No matter how many words we use we still…
