There's something interesting about the pressure of a new year. Starting over is such a "thing" these days. And I was bombarded by "challenges" this morning: a 30-day yoga challenge, a 3 month fitness challenge, a reading challenge, a decorating challenge, a cooking challenge.
How about a thinking challenge? How about a transformation challenge--not your body or fitness...how about a "becoming better at who you are" challenge? That's the kind of email I need.
In the past couple months I've tried (in vain) to return to things I've done successfully in the past in hopes that I can find the same kind of satisfaction I once did. I've hung out with old friends. I've tried to write on paper again in a journal format. I've gone back to yoga. Nothing feels right or good. I can't stick with it. I feel constrained by it in some ways. And to certain degrees, of course. Hanging out with some old friends feels fantastic; others feel disappointing. Yoga feels fantastic...but it brings up challenge for me in a new way...and so I'm more likely to not feel overly compelled to do it again tomorrow.
In so many ways I feel behind the curve. In some ways I need to break free from the expectations I had about finishing my dissertation and finding fulfillment in that.
I need a new dream.
That's what this year is going to be about for me. Day by day, I'm going to write the script of a new dream. I have no idea what that will look like. I think somehow, stories will be involved. I don't know what that means. Writing will be involved; I am not sure of the medium. Happiness will be a goal. I almost said contentment but I'm not sure that's right. I need some angst for magic to happen in my life. Truth will be my guide. That sounds unbelievably "new agey" but I don't mean it that way. I mean I will decide on courses of action that feel right a genuine to me, and probably sometimes, me alone. And I will stop lying to people for the sake of promoting their own delusions, whatever those are. And I'll really begin again to educate myself.
Things feel to be coalescing.
I think the method for this is key to everything. This is not a starting over or even a re-focusing. This is a refinement. I believe I have all the tools I need to make something spectacular happen. I need to practice with them. I need to make mistakes with them. I need to learn to craft with them. But this is making new wine in old wine skins.
This is the most exciting thought I've had in months. It's been percolating that long. And I truly believe the fact that it's January 2nd is coincidence. It was a deadline for myself...in a way. But the time is ripe now to seize the inspiration and start the movement forward.
One of the best ways I can describe it is a figure skating metaphor. Unlike walking to running, in figure skating there's a moment when you're standing in a t-stop with one blade perpendicular to the other. You're waiting. And then, when the moment in right, you push off the back blade and take that first stroke forward. It's not gradual. From standing, you glide. If you do it right, you glide gracefully.
That's my method. The potential energy has been gathered. Time to go kinetic (and I didn't even have to look that physics reference up). See...all here waiting for the signal.
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