Pastebin monday 30Jan2017

Pastebin Monday

So this one is gonna be a bit more serious than most of my pastebins i think.

Last week I tweeted about making a pastebin about something (https://twitter.com/Mr_Carter13/status/824339767777251328) so this is that pastebin.

The backstory:
I'll start with a reflection on my current job.  I am a packaging designer for a custom packaging company.  I use my degree (B.S. Packaging Systems and Design) and 3d design software to come up with unique and efficient packaging solutions for all types of customers.  (Literally everything from airplane bathroom sinks, to battleship engines, to video game controllers).  I am still learning a TON through experience, but I would say that I am fairly good at what I do.

I have been working in this position for almost a year, so now let me address some important questions:
1. Do I like my job - Yes, I do like my job.
2. Am I financially stable - Yes, I am paid fairly for my position and level of experience.
3. Do I have any real issues that would cause me to want to leave my job - No. Every job has good days and bad days and I know that there are days where I may not be the happiest, but having been in a job that was really toxic to my life before, this job is very reasonable.  My work/life balance is very fair.

the most important question of all:
4. Do I LOVE what I do - No.  I do not wake up every morning and go "holy crap man I can not WAIT to go into work and design a box"

Now the meat of the 'bin.

I have been noticing the answer to the last question a lot in the last 6 or so months.  So something I've made a point to do is think about what I DO love to do.  What fascinates me?  What do I find myself choosing to spend my free time on, especially when I have multiple options?

While the obvious answer is "Video games" and/or "twitch", I'm looking for something more specific than that.

This past week was the CSGO: Eleague Major.  It was the largest counter strike event ever in terms of viewership, it was effectively the World Championships of CSGO.  It also happened to be (to my knowledge) the largest stream ever in terms of concurrent viewers, and the first twitch stream to break the 1 million viewer mark.

While I really do enjoy watching counter strike, (seeing people play at a high level is what got me into playing in the first place), I have also recently realized that my fascination isn't limited to that game.  I genuinely love esports as a concept.  While I'm working on my packaging design, I almost always have a podcast or some other video/stream on in the background and over the last 8 months I would say that at least 80% of it has been esports related.  I find myself getting excited to watch EVO even though I'm god awful at fighting games. I get super hype watching The International even though my dota experience is only playing a few games (most of which were drunk games with my college roommates).  I've always thought that it would be cool to be a professional gamer, but since I'm bad at video games, why not get involved in showcasing the people who can play at the highest level.  Even more so, I find myself having discussions with people about what is the next big thing for esports, and gaming in general.  Especially in the last year, with the release of Overwatch, I have had many conversations with people (some of you might be reading this) about what could be done to make Overwatch a better spectator esport.  I think being a part of something like that is something that I really want to look into.

Having been around in the twitch/gaming community for a LONG time now, I have gotten to know a lot of people who are involved in similar projects and gaming in general especially.  I want to learn more about what options are out there to get involved in this and just tackling this in general.  So I may reach out to some people in the next weeks/months/who knows.

So I guess the reason I wrote this pastebin is to get it out there and help get myself motivated to really chase something that I'm interested in.  Who knows, maybe I do a bunch of research and find out that its not something I want to do.  I hope that's not the case but at least then I can be proud of the effort I put in to find out, instead of just being like "man wouldn't it be cool to do that".  I'm at a place in my life where I can remain stable with my current job and really pursue something that I love.

Thanks for reading and I'll hopefully keep you updated as I go.

Heres some music:
https://youtu.be/_iYhH6cOgpE?t=14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoY66lqmcYA