While working on a math assignment today, I casually glanced over at my phone to check the date, when lo and behold, it read Feb. 21, 2016. Now this may not seem like riveting news to report to the general public, but it certainly was riveting news for me. Shocked at the fact that we were basically two months into the year, my mind wandered back to when I had made my new year’s resolutions for 2016. Usually I am the first to attest to sitting around sipping sparkling grape juice reflecting on the year before while watching the ball drop in Times Square on TV. Setting new goals, starting fresh with the new year -- basically all of that good cheesy stuff -- is right up my alley, but this past New Year’s, I happened to be in a completely different country on the other side of ocean celebrating in a way I wasn’t used to: sitting in the “kid’s room” at a house party my parents were invited to, surrounded by gloomy teens who honestly thought 2015 had sucked.
Very much out of my element, I didn’t give my usual Oprah-inspired motivational interlude and instead held my tongue as I tried to digest what 2015 had really meant to me. Looking back, I realized that it was definitely a roller-coaster, filled with everything from passing IB exams and graduating with a class full of friends I could newly appreciate, to my last summer truly living at home spent overcoming my fear and finally getting my driver’s license, to oh yeah -- going to freaking college in a state 12 hours away from home. The result was probably the most change and growth I’ve ever had in my life, which was quite ironic considering my fellow party-goers were commenting on how the year had proceeded just as all the years before it had: a repetitive combination of meaningless school, work, and play. I mean if that’s not the definition of an existential crisis, then I don’t know what is.
After that rocky start to the New Year, my hopes of having the perfect fresh start for 2016 were snatched before my eyes. What emerged though, was the realization that New Year’s is a time everyone makes special, just by deciding that it’s a good time to revisit ourselves and our lives. In reality, just like a rad new haircut, the first day at an awesome internship, or the clean first sheet of notebook paper at the start of a new semester, fresh starts exist everywhere in our lives, and we can always decide to start anew.
Although I didn’t get to have my hyped meditation time (is that even a thing?) and come up with a concrete list of tangible goals at the start of the year, I did take the time today to write down a list of things I wanted to accomplish in the future. I noticed that all them traced back to this message that I had constantly been reminding myself of throughout this year so far, which was that I wanted to make the work I did this year meaningful to me and those around me in some way. I realized that for me, this means striving towards consistently taking actions that align with my beliefs, and translating those vague, optimistic ideals into my reality. It’s easy to get caught up in the stress of school, especially when you literally live there, but taking a moment to breathe and hit the reset button always helps to reaffirm purpose and hopefully this time around I can avoid another existential New Year’s Eve.
