by Leann Zotis

Created on: August 14, 2008   Last Updated: December 30, 2008

For years I have labored at my chosen profession. Not a bad job, as jobs go. It pays the bills, provides options for a secure retirement and, overall, has exposed me to some rather interesting friends and co-workers.

Still, through it all, I was restless. Somewhere, deep in my heart of hearts, I yearned for a level of self-expression that has never come from my work. I longed to pour out my inner most thoughts by putting pen to paper (fingers to computer keyboard?). Equally as important, I wanted to have my efforts recognized and, hopefully, I wanted to earn an income for my efforts.

From time to time I would make an attempt an article here, a short story there, a product review thrown in for good measure. the problem was time! My life was full with the busyness of living. The only time I sat still long enough to put my initial thoughts on paper was during the workday when I was supposed to be, well, working. At work, I couldn't trust that my notes and jotted down thoughts would not be spied upon and viewed unfavorably by my employer who expected, generally, total devotion to the task at hand. There was rarely a good time to quickly record my fleeting thoughts allowing them to pass, unwritten, from the front of my brain to the back of my brain and into oblivion.

Salvation to my problem came from an online source, www.universalclass.com. There, for a nominal fee ($40 for the basic course, $65 for the basic course with certification) I was able to learn the nearly lost art of Gregg Shorthand. Six months divided into ten lessons was all it took to become proficient (not master the craft, just enough to make the techniques usable) in the squiggles and lines needed to quickly and secretively transfer a few sentences, ideas, or paragraphs from my over active imagination to a tablet for later transcription into my laptop.

Am I an expert at Gregg Shorthand? Not by a long shot. But, by working through the course at my own pace, online, in brief spurts throughout the week, I have acquired enough words and phrases to record my thoughts quickly, accurately and discretely in brief moments of down time during my normal work day. My ideas are safe, non-obtrusive, and protected from the undesirable observations of others.

Because I can capture my thoughts before I loose them, my productivity has quadrupled. I am completing more writing assignments, submitting more, selling more.

Could I have benefited from a classroom course in Gregg Shorthand? Maybe, but I never would have found the time to attend class. I would have spent far more in time, travel expense, and struggling to keep up. I would probably have fallen behind in the more structured and rigid classroom schedule. The end results would have been failure.

Online, I was the boss. My work was graded when I was ready - not when some instructor said it was due. Work a little one week, work a lot the next week I set the pace. As a result, I could always keep up and make progress.

As unlikely a concept as this may seem, one online class has made a world of difference for me and set me on course to achieve previously unrealized dreams.

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