Happy New Year: Thinking, Saying, & Doing
2015 is over, and another year has passed where I'm not where I want to be, but I've still managed to do amazing things...
I'm a dreamer. I have wild fantasies about who I want to be, but there is a big gap between my ideal self and my actual self. But one thing I realized quite recently is that the people I know who recognized and chased their dreams relentlessly, regardless of how crazy they may have seemed are achieving them. A friend from high school always wanted to be an actor. I remember him in our high school plays, specifically the one about Charlie Brown, but I just saw The Big Short the other day, and he was in the movie. Opposite Christian Bale no less. I felt like Will Ferrell in Elf when I saw him. I grabbed onto my friend's arm, and I was like, "I know him!" Another friend I've known for about 15 years just opened a new restaurant in Houston to critical acclaim. Another good friend has watched her real estate company grow in leaps and bounds over the past four years that I've known her.
I want to write. I do write, but I want to write fiction and screenplays and nonfiction. Regardless of how much I want to deny it, it keeps finding ways to want to come out, and honestly, I don't want to keep it in any longer. Truth is, I work towards my dreams in secret, and not every day. I put off chasing my dreams mostly because of fear. But I'm not afraid anymore, because there is nothing to be afraid of. The worst that could happen is that I could fail miserably, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, so when I start feeling afraid, I'm going to have to go back to a few quotes I rely on for inspiration:
- "It's never too late to be what you might have been." - George Eliot
- In the final season of How I Met Your Mother. The Mother and a former acquaintance are at her apartment and have this conversation (Don't say you never learn anything from watching television by the way):
“The Mother: I feel so lost right now. I don’t even know what I’m doing with my life.
Mitch: I felt lost for a long time too… Until I finally woke up and realised I wanted to follow my dream of teaching music. Let me save you a few years. Even if it sounds completely crazy, what is it you want to do with your life?
The Mother: I want to end poverty.
Mitch: Great, then every decision you make from here on out should be in service of that.”
- Lastly, advice from Master Yoda. "Do or do not. There is no try." No more thinking and saying.
2016 will be a year of doing. A year of making decisions in service of my dreams, because it's never too late.