'Cause I wonder sometimes about the outcome
Of a still verdictless life
Am I living it right?
-- John Mayer, Why Georgia
Every year around New Year's eve, I used to have the same kind of thought about the year it was, the year it was about to be, and how strange it was that I was looking at the very back end of one, and the next right between the eyes.
When I was a kid, it was sometimes like my entire life was quantified in segments and blocks of years -- I got my driver's license in 2013, graduated high school in 2014, and then I will graduate college in 2018. For the longest time, I used to stare at the year 2014 on T-shirts and cards and anything else having to do with high school graduation as if it were an entire lifetime away.
The year 2014 came and went, and so did my perpetual looking forward. Today, the year is 2016, and I find myself often looking back, instead. Whether it be while driving down the interstate, cooking dinner in my apartment, buying groceries on my own, paying rent, or doing any of the other countless adult things I catch myself doing nowadays, I'm always thinking about pieces of my present life through the lens of the past.
If I showed my 16-year-old self a glimpse of this current moment, I'm really not sure what'd he'd think. Would he be proud, or disappointed, or would he believe it?
I don't know if I think about this so often because maybe I still see myself as a 16-year-old kid in small town Kentucky, and not an almost 20-year-old college student living on my own an hour away from home -- or maybe it's simply because I really like thinking in hypotheticals (this is far more likely), but I do believe that I should start looking forward again. Actually, no -- let's not do that either.
2013, 2014, 2015, 2016. One thing stays the same -- every year comes, and every year goes. Instead of looking at this year through the lens of the past or the future, I'm going to give the present a try.
Instead of what would my past self think of this, I'm going to look to my present self. Am I doing this the best I can be doing it? Am I living in the best way I can? If I took a third-person view on my own life, what would I think about it?
I've always thought New Year's resolutions were overrated and cliché, but this is my challenge for 2016: be better.
Be a better writer. Be a better brother, a better son, friend, roommate, editor, Christian, tour guide, fraternity exec member, student, intern, grandson, and anything else I am, do, or become.
I don't know what 2016 will hold, but one thing's for sure: this will be a better year, come hell or high water.
All the best,
Gammon Fain
Editor in Chief, Odyssey at the University of Kentucky
