Danny Kaye once said, “Life is a blank canvas, and you need to throw all the paint on it you can.† With the heart of an artist, and the mind of a communications student, I often find myself dissecting this quote. The artist side of me is reading this as: be free, do as much as you can, and be colorful. But, the rhetor side of me is saying: no, the paint is the experiences you have in life, the experiences that will make you a better person. Which leads me to an argument I have internally struggled with my entire life: how do you gain enough personal and professional experiences to live your life the way you want? So many of my friends pick between these two. If you only obtain professional experiences, your life canvas would be shades of grey, which is much too boring. If you only obtain personal experiences, your life would be shades of yellow, orange, and red, which is much too bright to look at everyday. How do you find the happy medium? A way for the blues, purples, reds, yellows, oranges, and even greys to come together? I’ve learned it’s easier said than done. You must combine the personal with the professional; you must do in the professional field what you love in the personal field. It’s learning what you love that is tough. Once you figure that out, organizations like iMADdu, can teach you how to work harmoniously with the personal and professional.
