Monday, December 31, 2007

2007 wishes revisited

at the beginning of the year, i made some pretty lofty goals for myself. i didn't think about them daily, but they were certainly in the back of my mind. for those of you new to my musings, here they were:
I don’t do new year’s resolutions. However, this upcoming year will be full of blank slate possibilities for me. A new home. A new job. A changing life...
First, I hope for strong friendships. I know that I can count on a lot of my friends for most anything. Some of my friends, I’m not so sure. I’d rather have a few true friends than a lot of occasional friends. That goes especially for those of you that I can see on a regular basis now, because come summer, I’m out of this town. Which category do you fall in?

with my move, i've figured out who my true friends really are. my occasional friends, i talk to occasionally or not at all. my true friends keep me abreast of their lives, return phone calls, and have even begun to visit! i'm making new friends up here, slowly but surely. same problem as gainesville: it's tough when i spend most of my days working with people who are out of my friend age range.
Second, I hope for an excellent new beginning, wherever I land. Overseas will be infinitely more exciting and frightening. I’m scared of what might happen, but I know that now is the time to do it. Any older, I’ll run the risk of not doing it and regretting the indecision. Stateside will also be great, no matter where I wind up. I’ll have old friends wherever I go, this I know. It’s the new ones that I’m looking forward to.

i think i'm off to a pretty damn good start!
Third, I hope for happiness. Not just for me, but for all my friends and family. I’m going to do more this year to ensure that in my own life. Spontaneity is the new trait I’m going to try on. I hope it fits. For the rest of you, do what you need to do in order to find your own happiness. Sitting around, lamenting faults does nothing to improve yourself.. Call an old friend. Make a new one. Learn a new sport. Read a book. Climb a tree. Go roller skating in the sunshine and eat cotton candy...

this move has made me happier than i've been in a long while. i've been more spontaneous with doing things this year. random trips, random fun. less stress about the outcome, more stress on the present. i don't think this move would've been possible without a lot of spontaneity. a month to find a job and a place to live, neither of which i actually accomplished before moving. stressful, certainly. a learning experience, more than i realize.

so those were my wishes for this year. i wish for more of the same in 2008. one thing i definitely learned though: wishing gets you nowhere. i can finally say that i'm not content to let things i don't like bother me or keep me down. i remove them from my life or ignore them. confrontations are still necessary, but there's no longer going to be a build up of weeks and weeks as before. which makes my last prediction or hope for my tabula rasa year the most telling:
Like a phoenix, I will rise from the ashes of the last year and begin anew.
On a tangent from the tabula rasa idea, I also see the first definition [a. The mind before it receives the impressions gained from experience.] Before it receives impressions gained from experience. That’s all well and good. Locke was speaking mostly about infants and their formative years. How little genetics play in how someone turns out. The nature vs. nurture argument. Yes, it’s an oversimplification. A little literary license, please. Some experiences are too painful or wonderful to forget. Painful lessons learned build up and make us more tentative to make friends, try new things, form meaningful relationships. Too many of those lessons, people become jaded and distrustful. I don’t want to get to that point. Yes, I hurt, but some things are always going to hurt. It’s just a matter of how often and how much. As the year begins, I’m going to do my best to get past the painful ones and quit living in the past. What’s done is done. I guess that’s as close to a resolution as I’ll make this year.

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