Life - Inspired Living SA

Claudia Jones is a 20 something local Capetonian who shares her love of “things” in her blog aptly named things – it’s me thing(s). Today she shares a bit more about herself and what motivates and inspires her.

Tell us a bit about yourself?

I’m a girl in her 20’s who (according to friends and family) sees the world a little differently to most people. I was born in Bloemfontein, in the Freestate and moved to Cape Town with my family when I was about 8 years old. My immediate family is really small, it consists of one younger brother, mom and dad, gran, Ouma and grandpa, two uncles and an aunt. I love them all very much and have a special relationship with each of them.

When I left school, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life or what I wanted to be when I grew up but after a lot of thinking and enrolling everywhere, studying a part-time photography course and a year of basic graphic designing, I went on to complete my BA in Visual Communications at the AAA School of Advertising in Cape Town. I was a student for 5 years before I venturing into the “real world”. Up until now I have worked for a company that develops educational software and have been blessed with the experience of being thrown into the deep end and being able to learn so much. Apart from my fulltime job, I still enjoy doing photography part-time and working on my blog. In April I will be on my way to Thailand to teach English and see a little bit more of this big world!

What defines you?

One of my passions is trying to help out where I can. If I could be that one little person that makes a small change in the world I think my goal would be settled. In my head I don’t only have one dream… there are so many! I want to travel the world (even though I am petrified of flying), be successful and live an awesome life and growing old to tell my stories.

What are your strengths & weaknesses?

A weakness would definitely be answering this question (hehe). My weaknesses are probably trying understanding why people have to suffer the way they do (whether it is financially or emotionally), asking “why” way too much, over thinking and probably wanting to know too much about everything.

My strengths are being able to laugh (a lot), think creatively, be open-minded, accept challenges and be unique.

What motivates you, what or who is your major source of inspiration?

I don’t just have one specific person or thing that motivates me, I take a lot of my inspiration from my family and friends, they are probably my biggest source of inspiration. My other motivation is working towards making my dreams come true.

What do you treasure most in life?

Awesome memories, friends and family. I don’t think I can elaborate more on that 🙂

Describe your blog and what you blog about:

I blog about things. Most of the time it’s anything I feel I want to share with the rest of the world.

These things include: things I find (on-and offline), secret things and places I discover, people and their talents and the me things that makes me who I am today. I also write and try to illustrate happenings in my life (all true). Some of the stories I blog, I wrote from when I was 13 years old.

What makes you happy?

Just like the song from Spongebob Squarepants goes:

What is fun?

“F” is for friends who do things together
“U” is for you and me
“N” is for n-ytime and n-yplace at all!

Most of what I do for fun always involves the people I love. My fun involves anything from meeting up for a few drinks with friends, going to the beach, horse riding on the beach with my mom, braaing with my dad, chatting to my brother and being a tourist in my own country. I love Photography, being creative (trying to draw or sew clothes), surfing (although I must be honest I haven’t been in a while), cooking and my blog.

What Is Your Ideal Job?

Definitely where I don’t have to sit at a desk all day. If I could run my own company it would have everything from advertising to photography, travelling to far away destinations and blogging about it, helping people, fashion styling and organising events… that would be my ideal job.

How do you personally define success?

Success to me is when you have found your happy place in this big world. It does not have to have anything to do with money, driving a fancy car, knowing the fancy people or living in your fancy-gansta-looking mansion. To me it means, being happy with your job, life, love and most importantly with yourself. Once you’ve got those covered, I believe you are successful already!

What has been your greatest challenge thus far in your life?

This is a tricky one to answer because I feel that everyday so far there are challenges that can either make or break you in the person you are. I believe that as each day goes by, all the things that happen, happy for a reason and that the way you come out of it at the end of the day is what will mould you to the person you are.

I suppose my biggest challenge at the moment is leaving for Bangkok and then going over to Thailand. Doing this on your own is quite daunting but also very exciting.

If you had to live your life over again, what one thing would you change?

I think I would have taken more chances in life that I was scared of doing. Work wise and even personal events. I think if I could change something, it would have been to take a leap of faith, when you didn’t know what else there was to do.