sessifet | New Year's Resolutions

January is the time for resolutions.

People all around me resolve to quit smoking and quit drinking. Some resolve to lose weight, to exercise more, to be healthier. Some resolve to be happier, focus less on the negative, to be kinder to themselves and others. Others resolve to read more, listen to more music, learn new skills in writing, cooking or mustelid wrangling (possibly that one's just me).

Yet others resolve that this time, this year, they will make their dream come true. They are going to climb that mountain. They will finish their book (getting it published is the next big dream). They will circumnavigate the globe on a push bike (with strategic use of flotation devices).

Or perhaps they will finally get their degree. Or start a new one (the great squid's blessing be upon you). Or maybe even abandon an education they spent all these years on in order to become a honey badger wrangler (again with the mustelids).

I love seeing this process. I like seeing the plans and the imagination at work. And I always cross my fingers for everyone involved.

(As an aside: it also kind of makes me sad. I see all these people around me making plans for the future and I feel like I'm lagging. I don't have big dreams or big plans, but all these smart and wonderful people are doing things with their lives (all of y'all that got engaged last year and are getting married this year or next? Totally blaming part of this on you :P), whereas I've never done anything.

I mean, I'm in my early thirties (speeding towards mid-thirties, to be honest) and I've never even been to a...different...country. Erm. Ah.

Heh. Moving swiftly onwards...)

Whatever your dream is, I hope you catch it. It doesn't matter how small it looks, or how trivial the world considers it to be. I don't care if it's a big thing like help preserving the tiger or rhino from extinction or a small thing like cuddling ferrets at your local ferret shelter (erm...I may have a mustelid problem). All I care about is that you go out and do this one thing. The thing that makes you happy. The thing that's part of the edge of your puzzle. The thing that makes hitherto unknown parts of you jump up and down and go 'yes, that's what we're supposed to be doing!'.

Because when you get there, when you hit that point where you realise that you have just made your dream come true, it's the best thing in the world. It is joy and wonder and disbelief in equal measure. And the bestest thing of all? You get to live in the world where you made your dream come true, which is just icing on the already awesome cake. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about here.

Of course, living in said world does mean you will eventually become used to having fulfilled your dream and then the brainweasels (whoo mustelid!) will start trying to convince you you've never amounted to anything (damned Impostor Syndrome). Fortunately, I have come up with a solution (for myself. I don't guarantee this will work for anyone else): find a new dream.

So that's my new year's resolution: find my next dream. It may involve mustelids. Possibly in giant metals statue form.