Fearless New Year

I'm like most other people when it comes to New Year's Resolutions. I make them, get excited and do really well the first week, and then get lazy and stop. So this year I figured that I just wouldn't make any. After all, I usually come up with these resolutions a few hours before the Ball Drop anyway and they aren't very well thought out. When I make goals, they need to reflect my circumstances and my state of mind. Otherwise I quickly lose motivation. 

On Facebook earlier today, a woman that I look up to posted that she didn't like to make New Year's Resolutions, but that she had decided instead to have a theme for the year. Her theme is Hands. She said that her focus would be what people do with their hands-- things like work, service, or hobbies--and on noticing Heavenly Father's hand in her life and in the lives around her.

The more I thought about her post and the idea of a New Year's Theme, the more I liked it. Instead of narrow, specific goals, it would be more about a way of life. It would be a frame of mind to strive towards to make life more meaningful. I decided that I would try this New Year’s Theme idea.

The theme that I came up with came out of a fortune cookie that I got in Chinatown while I was in San Francisco last week. It might sound a little cheesy, but I liked it. It makes me want to make the most of the opportunities that I’ve been given and be more courageous:

Every day is a special occasion.

For special occasions, I wear something nice and put time into my hair and makeup. I feel pretty and confident. I feel like smiling all the time. I feel like I can face the occasion with poise and grace. I feel like my best self. I feel fearless.

I don’t feel fearless nearly enough. I worry. A lot. I worry about the future and about how the present isn’t like I hoped it would be or like the past was. I worry about big decisions and little decisions and I worry about decisions after I’ve made them. I worry about people and about what they think and what they expect. I worry that once I have what I want, it won’t be what I hoped it was. I worry too much.

This is going to be a big year for me. I’m going on an LDS mission this summer and I’ll be gone for 18 months. Before that, I’ll be at BYU for my second semester of college. I will be spreading my wings even wider and learning to fly on my own. A lot of changes have happened to me over the past year and I hope that 2014 will be a time for me to learn how to live with these changes and be happy about them. I am in such a different place in my life than I was just twelve months ago. I don’t know if I have ever lived a year that has ended so differently than it began. I’m sure 2014 will be just as transforming. I will need to be much more fearless this year than I was last year.

 I learned a lot from last year, and I hope that because of it, I am strong and wise enough this year to handle whatever comes my way with dignity and good humor. I hope that I can take bold steps forward and let go of whatever is holding me back. I hope I can move past my worry and into the darkness with a leap of faith. I hope I can be fearless. And I’m going to live every day like it is a special occasion.

         

After 2 AM

            My room is the black hole of you-shall-not-ever-leave-once-we-start-talking. Seriously, I never shut up. So if you have something pressing to do, don't come visit me. Because I LOVE to talk. And I will yak your ear off, and you will think I am witty and clever and you will never want to leave. Even if you have something to do. Even if I have something to do.

           And that is why it is 2:22 AM as I write this. Lots of talking when I should have been working on my poster for linguistics. And a cleaning bug that attacked me after I finally finished. At least my dorm looks nice now.

        This post was random and pointless. I so obviously need to be asleep now.......

Hump Daaaaay!

I hope you all had a great Wednesday. I know I did. :)

Choose to Swim

            I've wanted to do this for a long time. I've even attempted to start a blog several times, only to have it die within days. Due to that track record, I suppose that there is no real guarantee that this attempt will succeed. However, I'm going to try again anyway. This time around, I am armed with much more experience about life than I had in previous attempts. I think I actually have things to say that are worth taking seriously now.
            I don't want to lay out an entire introduction to myself here. I think my future posts (because they will exist this time!) will be able to speak for me in that regard. You'll learn who I am. And besides, introductions get cheesy and you end up seeing an overly perky version of what I wish to be rather than what I am. For that same reason, the "About Me" blurb doesn't say a thing about me. Maybe someday I'll come up with something witty to put there, but for now you get a quote:

"The fact is that when a man is out of his depth, whether he has fallen into a little swimming bath or into mid ocean, he has to swim all the same."
--Plato, The Republic

           I came across this quote while reading a excerpt from Plato's The Republic for my ancient world civilizations class. This class is pretty much the bane of my existence. It would be great if there was no homework and no reading quizzes and no tests and it wasn't at 9 in the morning. (This is much too early for a college student to be awake.) I enjoy the lectures and some of the reading and that's about it. Tangent about my feelings for said class aside, this quote is wonderful, and the selection it came from, which talks about Plato's ideas about women being educated, is wonderful as well. Read it sometime.
            This quote sums up something I have believed my entire life. No matter what life throws at you, and no matter how hard it throws it, somehow you need to deal with it. Giving up just isn't an option. I don't just believe this because it seems wise or it looks pretty on a card placed on a plate of cookies from your visiting teachers. I do understand what it feels like to be out of my depth and to face the options of sink or swim. I know what it feels like for the metaphorical waves to pound mercilessly until drowning almost seems preferable. Trust me, though, its better to swim and fight to the shoreline than to let the water drag you under.
             The tide is liable to rise and and once again whisk you back out to sea, even once you  think you're safe. You will have to swim again. And again and again and again. You may spend more time floundering in the water than laying in the sand, but that is the way life is, and there is a reason for it. You learn things out at sea, and you bring them back with you. You become better and stronger because of what you have survived. I've lived it--I'm still living it--and I choose to swim.