So, I feel like celebrating New Years with resolutions and goals is all kind of a bit cheesy. I had a grand epiphany the first time I saw the The Office's Pretzel Day, when Stanley closes the episode by saying, with one of those rare smiles on his big, gangsta face: "Three-hundred and sixty-four days until the next pretzel day"--everyday is New Years Day. Today was. Tomorrow will be. Everyday, there are three-hundred and sixty-four days until that day happens again.
But even if I think it's silly to do the whole "this is our one night to make goals" routine, my mom will always be a New Years sort of girl. We always have to make a list of things we're going to do differently (another tradition!). Usually, those things are the exact same things we were supposed to work on the year behind us, but hey... Time flies.
I decided tonight that of any resolutions I've pattered around with for 2012, my most important one is that I need to work on living in the moment. I haven't really done that since the fifth grade. From the sixth grade on, everything I did had something to do with looking good for college. Student council, orchestra, accepting Sunday School callings, the people I hung out with; I wanted to do a lot of these things, but it was never really simply because I enjoyed them. I was going to be the best at them, and that would make my future better.
Well, that habit of living for the future, albeit what got me into college, has gotten the best of me. I never really thought about it like that until tonight. Besides my book planner and my phone calendar, I have a wall calendar and a computer calendar and sometimes extra print out ones to mark down days and countdowns and deadlines. I have at least three copies of my major's classes-path printed out and carefully divided and scheduled at least three different ways, with projected graduation semesters and graduate school application reminders made in the corners. A large portion of my stress comes from worrying that I'm not making grades good enough to get me a Master's, with smaller amounts dedicated to worrying that I'll eventually get an unmarketable degree, or that I'll have to take out loans one day and then get into debt, or that I'll never get the job I really want. I worry at least a dozen times a day about the future. That's a dozen times that I should've been seizing the day.
I am a self conscious girl that worries I'll never be good enough, but the truth is, if I can just remember to be good enough for today, what else do I need? I don't want to sound foolish, and it's not like I'm going to throw my grades in the dirt and dance around in fields of clover all day. Having long term goals is essential to any success. But holding myself to a standard of long-term perfection was unhealthy. If I'm going to make 2012 my year, I'm going to make every day of 2012 my day. I will live in the moment. I will open the gates and seize the day! No one will break me, no one will make me give my rights awayyyyy, I'll rise and seize the dayyyyyyyy!
That last part will only make sense if you are a fellow Newsie.
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