2018 - New Year, New Me, right?

Wrong.

More Like New Year, Better Me. As the years have passed, I’ve seen who I’m becoming and who I’ve been. I haven’t changed because of who I’ve been, rather I’m changing as I grow up. Looking at who you are at a distance is easy when you’re seeing who you’ve been and who you want to become. It’s about seeing yourself for who you want to become and being proud of who you are. It might even be as simplistic as looking at yourself in the mirror and having a feeling wash over you of confidence and content in who you are.

Starting a new year off, we all have these expectations and goals. You go about two weeks into the year and all of the resolutions you might have been so determined to accomplish kind of just- drop off. You stop eating super duper healthy, you stop working out as much, the list goes on. Everything kind of just stops. But even if we all know that our habits may not last, we all start the new year with high motivation and even higher hopes. We all have this sense of, “this year is going to be better.”

But this year, will be different. Personally, this year- I’m determined to live a better life. I’m determined to go outside of my comfort zone. I’m determined to make a more conscious effort to be happier with who I am. I’m determined to look life in the eyes and make it my own. Being a freshman there’s so many new experiences that I have and haven’t had.

I went from a crazy schedule of high school classes from 7:30-2:30 and then after school activities and homework and stress piled on top of more stress to living on a college campus, getting myself out the door to make it to class on time, making sure you live healthy-ish, and a semi-empty schedule of maybe a class in the morning and one in the afternoon or a few classes spread out from about 10am to 2pm.

Despite growing up with a solid group of friends that barely changed, but more like expanded throughout the 12 years of school before college and even growing up being only a bit more extroverted than introverted was something that made making friends, even just meeting and talking to other people, more difficult.

All I’m saying is that going to college was one big schedule and life change. I think that is partially why I’m so determined to make this year better than before is because since I’ve been in college: I’m learning who I am, what I want in life, how to go about new things (like making friends, talking to people in general, etc.), and learning about life itself. I’m learning how to make life my own, how to grab it tight and not let go.

Life is about learning and experiencing. You learn from what you’ve experienced and you experience life for what it is and what it has to teach you. Make this year better. Not just for you, but for the world. Expand your horizons, either literally or socially or even in some small aspect of your unique life. Make this year better than those before it.

Take life by the hand and pull it along for once instead of letting yourself get pulled along. Make this year yours. Take control of your current life, your relationships, your mental health, your needs, and importantly, your career- taking control doesn’t mean forcing life, but to put your own life into your hands and see it for what it is.

The good, the bad, and the ugly (it’s an overused saying, but it still reads to whatever situation you might apply it to). Yet in all of this, I digress.

In writing this note to 2018: the supposed stereotypical motto of New Year, New Me? Honestly, it quite possibly could be that type of year. I’m looking forward to the stupidity of our world. The stupidity of those around us, even the stupidity of ourselves. As weird as that sounds, it’s always something to learn from. I’m looking forward to the relationships that will be built, the friendships that will fall and those that will rise.

The moments where you want the world to pause maybe just to catch up and catch your breath or to simply to sit there and have the world around you stop. Letting yourself reminisce in the moments that make you happy and the memories you hold close. I’m looking forward to a year where I will be learning about me. Where this will be the year that I become happy with myself, where I’ll figure out what the heck I want to do in life.

Basically what I’m saying is that I want 2018 to be the year where I make it my own. Where 2018 isn’t about what’s behind me or where I’ve been, but where I’m going and how I’m getting there. When I wrote about learning to love yourself (my first article), I mentioned that I’m nowhere close to being where I want to, in terms of being completely happy with who I am. But as time goes on, it’s been easier to tell that progress is being made.

Progress is progress is what I’ve always said. Learning to love myself has been a process where I’ve recognized how much I hold onto this idea of worrying about how others see me and now that I’m becoming happier with who I am- it’s easier to see life as it is, not this twisted tale of self-consciousness and worry and fear of everything within this world.

Back to what I was saying though: 2018 WILL be our year. The year of ambition, the year of new beginnings, the year of confidence, of futures. The year where sometimes it’s about how that window we all have into the world shifts and opens itself to widen our view.