Put this together this morning.
(via alexboenisch)
On living another year—some reflection
I can’t quite figure out how long a year is. When I think about the fact that I’ve added another year to my life, that last year feels incredibly short—a blur of decisions and choices. When I think about the individual moments, however, a year doesn’t seem large enough to hold all that I can remember.
I’ve bounced around different jobs and working arrangements, faded out of touch with people, grown, stagnated, succeeded, failed, loved, lost, learned, and stumbled my way through rough patches. I don’t have the answers for the questions I have now but the ones from yesteryear have been tucked in and put to rest.
In fact, there’s more now that I’m worried about. There’s more now that scares the shit out of me. Scarier still, the decisions I make now don’t have results I can see in a few days or weeks; they’re choices I’ll look back on during a lazy Sunday at the kitchen table in the home I haven’t bought yet. They’re the decisions I’ll smile at making when I look at what I have or regret not making when I examine what I’m missing.
Yes, that’s terrifying. No, I’m not worried about it. Why? I’ve never really been a worrier, but that’s just me. I can’t teach anyone to be less impacted by the forces in their lives. I can’t guarantee that things are going to turn out well, either. Hell, my own insecurities keep me wondering when everything is going to come crashing down.
What I can do, though, is ask for a simple favor: take a moment to congratulate yourself. You’re here today; you’ve made it through yesterday and the days before. The things you were worried about, that you lost sleep over, that you cried about, that you regret—all of those things—are behind you now. You’ve pushed forward. Yes, tomorrow may be rough and next week may be impossible, but in two weeks that’ll be behind you, too.
As long as you continue to move forward, you’ll be fine. Keep your wits about you, your goals clear, and, most importantly, remain true to yourself. The hard decisions will still be hard and it’ll still feel like the world is against you at times, but life is about escalation. Everything is going to get harder but you’re going to continue to get better and better at living.
