Prompted by a post by Samantha Bell on The Global Economy and following on from my Voxself post, I thought I'd put some intersecting thoughts down on virtual paper.
In present day Australia, and particularly in Melbourne, we're incredibly fortunate to live in a place and time where we enjoy far more freedom and opportunity than almost all who have come before us. We're affluent, we're upwardly mobile, we're educated and we're connected.
Thanks to a vast array of self-publishing options available to us - many of which you can see I'm making full use of by the number of blue icons in the right hand corner - we can share our opinions with the kinds of audiences that would have been unfathomable not so many years ago.
I've been doing this for some years now, but I feel like I've been following opportunity - accidentally finding myself somewhere I didn't quite want to be. Last year was challenging for me. I wore myself out working on projects with no financial or emotional pay off. Though they mostly started as personal projects, I realised I was persevering out of obligation to others until my friend Kate gave me a good talking to. I learned some valuable lessons. But this year, I'd like to devote my energy to doing exactly what I want to do, hopefully creating value for others in the process.
In her post, Sam calls it defining your niche. It is an iterative process - your niche will grow and change as you evolve as an individual. The time has never been better than NOW to do exactly what you LOVE doing.
So that's what I'm doing.
I’m Lara. I’m a writer and researcher. I'm interested in how ethics and economics intersect at both macro and micro levels.
I'm interested in people - why we do what's easy, instead of what’s good. Why we do what we do and how we can do it better.
Much of my work looks at how we consume and how our personal attitudes and behaviours are informed by big systems (like policy, media, social trends, provenance, history). I want to understand how we can harness these forces to help people make decisions that are better for them as individuals and us collectively.
I hope what I have to say will be challenging, interesting and wholely my own perspectives. And I hope you'll stop by here occasionally to visit and tell me what YOU think.
What's your niche? Do you actively look at what you can offer that's different to anyone else?