Dear Reader Friends,
I am expanding this blog, which used to be JapaneseArmadillo.com, to now become ArmadilloAmore.Blog.
It will be the blog for all ventures related to my sticker shop, Armadillo Amore. I am planning to have six categories of blog posts including:
- Tarot & Oracle Cards
- Astrology
- Eastern Religions
- Japanese
- Creativity (Writing and Art)
- Entrepreneurship
Each of these topics, except the last, can already be found in Armadillo Amore stickers. (I am planning to add entrepreneurial stickers and resources as I blog about the topic.)
I have wanted to write about so many topics related to our stickers, but things have held me back.
A simple word for what has prevented me from blogging is fear.
Luckily, I went to art therapy this year, which helped me to face my fears. Mainly, my art therapist helped me to see:
- It is ok to make mistakes.
- It is possible to change and make new choices.
- I am only one human being.
- I have limited time and energy.
- Repeat.
While I have wanted Armadillo Amore to be a professional and robust company, since completing art therapy, I realize that I have been unrealistic in my vision.
βAnd now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.β
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Armadillo Amore is my creation, and inevitably, it is part of me. I am not perfect, nor will I ever be. All I can be is me.
As I have “worked on myself” through therapy and begun to accept myself more, so too has my vision for Armadillo Amore begun to change.
In one of my favorite movies of all time, You’ve Got Mail, there is a great contrast between Meg Ryan’s “Shop Around the Corner” and Tom Hanks’s “Fox Books.”
Specifically, Tom Hanks’s character loves to quote The Godfather, saying, “It’s not personal. It’s business.” On the opposite end of the spectrum, the philosophy of Meg Ryan’s character is, “Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal.”
I have often struggled with how personal I should make Armadillo Amore.
I enjoy creating personalized packaging, including free stickers, and making every effort to make our customers feel appreciated.
But how much do I really want to share of myself and my ideas?
In a recent post on my personal blog, MKWoodCreates.com, I discussed how being neurodivergent has prevented me from sharing my thoughts with others out of fear of being classified as “weird”.
A part of me is still very scared to share things that are so personal and precious to me.
However, it also reminds me of a story.
In my economics class, our professor taught us that the only way an economy can flourish is if cash is flowing through the system. According to him, the “Great Recession” in 2008 was primarily due to large corporations sitting on their cash.
The economy is a sort of financial ecosystem. We are all dependent upon each other. There is a broader web of connections, just like a food chain in the natural world.
Perhaps Pocahontas says it better in Colors of the Wind – “We are all connected to each other in a circle, in a hoop that never ends.”
Being part of the web of connections means both giving and taking. Sharing and receiving.
The things that are precious to me that I am going to share on this blog, they were all given to me in the form of reading and learning from other people.
So in a way, it is selfish for me to hoard these things to myself, when others have been so generous in their sharing their knowledge in the form of books, lectures, articles, etc.
I know from my experience as a student over the years that the best teachers are the ones who are the most passionate and enthusiastic about the subject that they teach.
Their enthusiasm makes you feel enthusiastic, even if you did not particularly find the subject interesting before.
My intention for this blog is to share some of my enthusiasm about these six topics with you. My hope is that you gain something useful and ideally, inspirational from reading these posts.
Thank you for taking the time to read this!
All my best,
MK
