The Flower Is Complete
The flower is in full bloom.
Seven petals later, the Flower Exercise from What Color Is Your Parachute is finally complete. What started as career homework slowly became something much larger: a map of how I work, what I value, what kind of life supports me, and why any of this matters in the first place.
The journey toward understanding myself was arduous work. Sometimes it left me feeling exhausted, wondering why I’m doing all of this. What I discovered was that the process reignited a spark I thought had completely vanished.
Where We Left Off
My previous couple of blog posts addressed petals one through four. Here’s a brief summary of those petals:
The First Petal: My Preferred Kinds of People I Like to Work With
It turns out the people I like to work with or for are those who are helpful, kind, tolerant, independent, and enjoyable to be around. This seems like it’s a universal desire everyone wants, but I know that’s not true. This petal says something about me as well.
The Second Petal: My Favourite Working Conditions
There is a pattern emerging. Not only do I need to surround myself with good people, but I also require comfort at work. I need a quiet, scent-free indoor workspace with room to focus and work independently.
The Third Petal: What I Can Do and Love To Do (My Favourite Transferable Skills)
The third petal revealed that many of my strongest transferable skills revolve around imagination, systems thinking, organization, pattern recognition, and turning scattered pieces into a coherent whole.
The Fourth Petal: My Favourite Knowledges or Fields of Interest
There are various things I’m good at. Graphic design and visual communication tops the list. I’m also knowledgeable in web design, WordPress, and digital content. Then there’s creative storytelling and my interest in geek culture. Additionally, I’m also good at project coordination and process organization. Rounding up the list is something many don’t acknowledge is an important skill, but is certainly helpful — emotional awareness, resilience, and reflective communication.
The final three petals grounded everything into real life.
The Fifth Petal: What My Work Needs to Support
This is the petal that deals with salary. The level of responsibility I’d like to have is being a member of a team of equals.
My preferred salary range is $25/hr to $35/hr. I don’t necessarily want to be super wealthy. Just comfortable.
The Team of Equals
What exactly do I mean by I prefer to work as a member of a team of equals? This means I’m not interested in office politics or hierarchy. I want us all working cohesively together, bringing the unique skills we bring to a workplace together.
I prefer working as a team member where trust and collaboration are emphasized. Environments where there is no micromanagement, as you are trusted fully to do what you were hired to do. Places that encourage mutual respect.
This ties back to my preferred workplaces. I like little supervision, in a calm work environment that encourages tolerance.
The Rewards That Actually Matter
There is also an exercise in this petal about the rewards I’d like to have in my work:
- A chance to be creative.
- Respect.
- Intellectual stimulation.
- A diverse work environment.
- To use my expertise.
- To help others.
- I crave adventure.
- I need a good challenge.
None of these rewards are about status. They’re about engagement, growth, contribution, and meaning.
It turns out “salary” has a lot more to it than just the amount of money you make.
The Sixth Petal: Building a Life That Fits
The places we live are just as important as the work that we do. With this petal, I would seem to thrive in an urban area. Where I’m living right now is actually perfect. While the cost of living is high everywhere these days, it’s certainly less expensive here in Calgary than in Metro Vancouver. And I love my apartment.
I don’t like small towns or communities. I like being close to amenities and close to work. It’s not really too much to ask for.
The key things I require for a comfortable city to live in are affordability, stability, community, and a decent space.
Home Is Part of the System
Some things on my list are non-negotiable:
- Pets
- Inexpensive
- Big space
- Stable climate, weather-wise
- Living close to work and amenities
When you think about it, this isn’t too much to ask for. It ties back into why I like where I’m living now. Calgary can be cold, but because of our proximity to the mountains, we get these lovely chinook winds that makes it a little more bearable. I have a separate room in this apartment that I have turned into my Creative Studio, where extra things live. So there’s lots of storage. And, importantly, I was allowed to have Diana with me. It’s also pretty quiet here, despite being closer to an airport runway, I don’t find it as bad as the first time I moved into Calgary in Templeton area.
My home is not separate from my work life. It is part of the environment that allows me to do my best work.
Designing for Stability and Freedom
When I was working, I was finding it easy to handle this apartment, financially. I was making enough to make ends meet and have a little bit on the side. It made me feel very comfortable. Now that I’m out of work I am a little worried about this cost, but I do think — world economy aside — it’s a very affordable place.
Now that I have completed this petal exercise, I feel a sense of reduced pressure. I am exactly where I need to be to thrive. I just need that job. But not just any job. I think the last two years has proven to me that I don’t really succeed in survival jobs. I need my work to be more meaningful.
The Seventh Petal: Why Any of This Matters
The seventh petal is about what my goal, purpose, or mission is in life. This is my mission statement:
My mission is to use creativity, compassion, honesty, and courage to help build a kinder, fairer, more imaginative world. I want to stand for justice while keeping empathy at the centre, protect what is vulnerable, celebrate uniqueness, and create work that helps people understand themselves more deeply, care for others more fully, and choose growth over harm.
Creativity, Compassion, and Courage
It’s interesting how consistently these themes have repeated themselves throughout the exercise.
With creativity, it shows how I value imagination, storytelling, building worlds, and helping people see differently. Compassion shows my empathy, emotional awareness, and understanding people. With courage, it reflects my values of honesty, justice, vulnerability, and continuing despite how uncertain things are — both personally, and globally.
Protect What Is Vulnerable
I’m not going to lie. I’ve always been a sensitive person. As long as I can remember, I cry when something emotional happens in a movie or TV show — whether it’s sad or happy. That shows great empathy.
I also tend to advocate for those who can’t defend themselves. It’s why I am a vegetarian and animal rights person. This also shows itself in my interest in fighting for accountability, and also in my interest in protecting the planet we live on.
The work I do on my Emotional Cartography category isn’t just a fun way for me to understand myself and what I’m feeling. It also serves to illustrate to anyone who reads this that it’s okay to be emotionally vulnerable. There are no good or bad emotions. It’s how you handle them that matters. To me, imagining them as characters helps me to identify what purpose they have in being present.
Why does my work tend toward humanity and reflection? It’s probably what I love about good stories, like superheroes or Star Trek. I like character-driven stories where we work towards bettering ourselves, rather than amounting wealth and status.
Why SuperMell Exists
I have always loved superheroes, and likely always will. To me, the idea of someone willing to do what is right and fight injustice is very important. When I decided to turn myself into SuperMell, it was because I had a need to explore what my purpose in life was — even though there were times I didn’t know what that purpose was.
I want to tell a good story with unique characters. Again, this is the purpose behind my various categories. Emotional Cartography certainly has some interesting characters. Mission Logs are where I explore what I’m working on now. Hero in Progress is a deeper exploration of why I am the way I am, or what’s worth fighting for.
In building this website and blog, I’m not just trying to define an online presence. I’m also hoping that anyone reading this may gain something from it. Whether it’s learning something new, or just enjoying reading a good story. I hope in the work I do on trying to understand myself, I’m encouraging others to understand themselves as well.
I’m realizing that SuperMell was never just a branding idea. It was a way of expressing values I didn’t yet know how to articulate directly.
What the Full Flower Revealed
Across seven petals, a very clear portrait emerged: a creative, systems-minded, emotionally intelligent person who wants to do meaningful work in calm, respectful environments alongside good people — using creativity, structure, empathy, and communication to help make things clearer, kinder, and more human.
That isn’t a small realization. It’s huge. It describes exactly who I am. Also from this work, I was able to update my About section on LinkedIn, with some assistance from Claude. I might also update the About page on this website soon after I have finished with the book.
The purpose of all this introspective work is to better understand the kind of career and environment where I can genuinely thrive.
Of course, I’m not finished with the book. I still have to see how all of this connects and what it means. Seriously, what does this have to do with the colour of a parachute? I hope the book will continue to illustrate what that whole metaphor means.
What This Means for My Career
Why is any of this work important? I can now target jobs more intentionally with appropriate keywords and job alerts. It will help me find jobs that are more aligned with the things I value the most.
All of this work is giving me back a sense of confidence I thought had vanished completely. Knowing yourself is very important work. It will help me sell myself to potential employers.
I’m no longer just searching for “a job.” I’m searching for alignment.
What This Means for My Life
Anyone who has ever faced a job loss goes through a period of grief. For someone with ADHD, rejection sensitivity can make job loss especially difficult to navigate. I was left feeling like a failure — someone who couldn’t be hireable. It was a difficult thing.
Doing this work has given me back a sense of self-worth. I think it’s helped me get closure on the last job. I’m slowly rebuilding after the loss. There is a greater understanding of what my needs are.
One thing I need to say to myself right now is: I’m giving myself permission to want environments that support me. I’m recognizing patterns instead of forcing myself into the wrong systems.
Diana Reviews the Fully Bloomed Flower
I think Diana would prefer to eat the petals of the flower rather than trying to understand what they mean. She’d be playing with a butterfly, or trying to catch a fly. Deep, philosophical meaning behind each petal means nothing to her.
This was illustrated earlier when I was working on the seventh petal. She suddenly decided to take one of my Hot Wheels cars, knock it to the floor, and discover it had wheels! She batted it around the whole living room. I guess her discoveries are more extroverted than introspective.
Final Thought: Current Coordinates
Current status: seven petals complete. The flower is in full bloom.
What began as career homework became something much more meaningful: a clearer understanding of who I am, how I work, what I need, what I value, and the kind of life I want to build.
I don’t have every answer yet. The job search is still real. The future is still uncertain. But I no longer feel like I’m wandering without a map.
The flower finally spoke clearly enough for me to hear it.
If your life had seven petals, what patterns would emerge?
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