2011: The Beginning
It’s already nearly half-way through February. Does that shock you? A lot has happened in my year so far, but I don’t think I was quite prepared for the fact that it is truly well underway. This is essentially my first week back at work for the year after being away for 2 weeks (I did work 3 weeks in January, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it counts). The two weeks were a fairly intensive sprint of family time, and family time and more family time. I have a lot of family, so it takes quite a bit of time and energy to really spend quality time with everyone, or as many people as possible. It was really refreshing though, not in a physical sense because I am certainly tired, but in a re-centering sense. I feel as if I have been able to reconnect with family and re-centre the value of family in my life – which is quite invigorating.
While the family time away had the most impact, there are a couple of other things that I’ve been doing that have helped as well. Nearing the end of 2010, I decided that I wanted to make a few changes in my life, or tick off a few of the things that I keep saying I want to do and yet haven’t done. The first was to apply to put in two pieces of art into an art competition – I didn’t really care whether I would win or not, it is more that I have wanted to do something of this kind for a while. The other big decision I made was to enroll back into Uni. Which I have done – into a graduate course in applied statistics. I have wanted to move out of the IT field for a while. My interest in it becomes less and less as the years move on, so this is one step towards moving out of the field. I’m pretty excited.
I also have a number of other plans for the year which I hope will work out, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
2011
It’s here already, nothing has held it back, time has past me by and already it is 2011. Do you know where 2010 went? I’m not sure where it went for me, a lot happened, and yet a lot of nothing happened. Amazing really. The only really way to change that is to actually plan ahead for what I want to do in 2011 and work towards doing it. Do you have a plan for the year ahead?
I have a rough idea of what I want to do this year, but I’m waiting on some responses and hoping it will all work out but there are no real guarantees, so I’m still waiting. Waiting, I’ve found, requires a lot of patience. Waiting, I’ve found, gives me an opportunity to start to doubt. Doubting usually leads me to thinking things will never work out, so patience for me is hard, I have to wait in hope rather than doubt else what I have been waiting for will never come to be…
Affirm, Enthuse, Support
There is no real reason why we shouldn’t support others in their endeavours with great gusto. I can’t really think of any reason, but for a long long time I have been fairly indifferent to other peoples plans for their future. I haven’t felt that I could be involved. I have felt that to ask too deeply about one’s hopes and dreams for the future was to pry, was more of a social gaff than a friendly enquiry. In some cases that is true, and sometimes it is not. I am coming to realise how important it is to really share with others your own dreams, and to questions others about theirs – openly and without censure. Yeats, summed it up sweetly in his poem ‘He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven’:
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Not only do we need to tread carefully when someone is sharing their deep desires – the true desires of the heart, but I believe we also must take part in nurturing those desires as well. Affirming that those desires are worthwhile. The progression of fulfilment of desires is a journey that I believe we should be travelling with our close friends. Over time, ensuring that your friend is still aware that you remember this desire, and that this desire is important to them, through gentle enquires and, to put heavy emotional words to it, grieving at the failures, and joyously celebrating at the successes with them! It is through such support that we can all journey towards the goals we have in mind…
The Agony of Not Knowing
I guess I haven’t been here for a while (yet again), and I know that I have missed writing something here, but there has been so many things going through my head right now that I haven’t found it easy to focus on one particular thing. Even writing this post is a bit of a struggle, a struggle between the priorities in my life and what I should talk about. Do you have that problem?
I think that most of what is going through my head sort of interrelates. I’m reading some pretty heavy books at the moment which I feel are important to get through, and work through in my head/life, so that I am facing the next steps in my life with my priorities and reasons figured out. I’m still tossing up going back to university to study another degree and change my vocational direction, but there are a large number of positives and negatives with this option – including large risk.
Added to that, I’m not 100% sure whether I want to change careers for the right reasons. I’ve definitely got good reasons, but are they good enough? Who will ever know really? I’m still trying to figure these things out, and I know the answer won’t come to me easily after all many of the choices we make in life have to be made ‘in the agony of not knowing’ (Scott Peck). I know this to be true in this case!
2010 Blogs to Watch
Just a short list of 3 blogs that I’ll be watching this year:
- Zen Habits (Life Skills)
- The Sartorialist (Fashion & Photography)
- Ma.tt (WP)
They are in no particular order.
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