hope

live life

I set this as my new iPhone lock screen recently and I think that's a mantra I really want to start living by. 

I've been feeling a bit aimless lately and I couldn't quite pinpoint the reason why. I just brushed it off as adjusting to full-time working life but even then I couldn't really fully convince myself that that was true given how I've never really stopped working since I started in this industry in 2009. Now that school's done, I think I need to set some new goals for myself- not just career goals or tangible material aims that would somehow signify some sort of growth in social stature, but some personal goals.

This double life is getting a bit exhausting to keep up. I think it's about time to face up to all the stupid decisions of my youth that I have made in my life, accept the consequences and start living the way I ultimately want to live, and not just hope to live. I think I am ready to change my life. I've always had this ideal standard that I would like to live by but never really had the courage to try to achieve it because it just felt like too much effort to have to try to change the way I live. I guess a part of it comes down to not wanting to put myself in a position where I risk failure. I hate failing. Who does? But avoiding new things so that I don't put myself in a position where I could possibly fail, while juvenile, seems to be my coping mechanism more often than not. Eeeks.

It occurred to me recently that just because some things are a habit, it doesn't mean that that's the best I can do. Neither is it the best for me. Just because some things are the way they have been for as long as I can remember, it doesn't mean it's right. I need to learn to stop taking comfort in worldly matters and things of the earth, but to focus on the life I want for myself in the long term. And to work towards that, no matter how long and hard the road is, how much judgement I will get for it, or how many people I lose in the process.

Baby steps, until I get to where I want to be, and become the person I want to be. A person I would be proud of. 

t minus 11 days

Keri Smith