Does this count as a New Year's resolution?

"I'm a strong proponent of having adventures, but only in the name of achieving balance. Stand still for too long and you're restless, run for too long and you're exhausted. The other side of the coin is the static serenity of home. 

If you're prepared to exercise a healthy dose of both daring and caution, the only caveat is this: An adventure without a mission feels a lot like wandering, and wandering - for too long - feels a lot like being lost. The conclusion? You don't necessarily have to look before you leap... just know why you're leaping."  –  Kathleen S., 2011

When I originally imagined moving to a new, faraway, and foreign place, I thought it would be such a life altering adventure. I truly thought that after Matt and I got to WA things would fall into place just the way I envisioned it because obviously, if I was living someplace else than I would stop procrastinating and start doing all of the things I wanted to accomplish with my life.

As you can see, I had a ridiculously unrealistic and romanticized idea of what my life would be like if I were living somewhere else. It was silly for me to assume that my location would change my life so grandly when the biggest piece of the puzzle was still the same – me.

After five months of feeling unsettled, I think I have finally realized what has been missing – a rallying point, a sense of direction for my everyday choices (and a nearby support network to see me through, but I can't have everything, can I?).

When I was in school (as I have been for the past 16 years), most of my choices revolved around my education – what books I would read, what my daily schedule looked like and how much free time I had for extracurriculars and friends. This is the first period of my life not determined by my first day of class, the school holiday schedule, and exam times. I feel lost without the guiding force of the school year.

The days seem to blur together as I aimlessly wander through them towards no particular objective. To remedy my drifting, I am going to embark on a journey, albeit a slow and ambling course, of self-improvement to see me through my days. As a beginning point, I am going to use the product of an exercise that I did with Matt two years ago. What we did was, individually and without conferring, create a list of short & long-term goals we wanted to accomplish (this was to help us evaluate our future plans and make sure there weren’t any huge discrepancies between the visions we had for our shared future).

What I would like is to utilize this blog as a tool to evaluate my progress while keeping in mind the broader goals I want to achieve. Of course, I will be ecstatic to cross off minor goals I achieve along the way but what I really want is for this to be an ongoing project of self-development. To start, I will list the goals as I originally wrote them (last edited 3/2013):

• Make dean’s list
• Don't get pregnant before graduating from college
• Earn a job I love
• Volunteer for a cause I love
• Live up North for one year or more
• Live abroad for one year or more
• Buy local products (meat, seafood, produce)
• Read more nonfiction books
• Become an amateur astronomer
• Become more interested in current events and news
• Become politically engaged
• Stay physically fit
• Plant a flower, herb, fruit and vegetable garden
• Build a house
• Evaluate and develop the spiritual facet of myself
• Develop and maintain relationships better
• Be a supportive lover, friend and coworker
• Don’t get caught up in the insignificant details
• Be a looking glass for others
• Grow up to be a Centenarian (added 8/2012)

A few of these things I have already accomplished, a few are currently in progress, some I haven't even thought of yet and some I will not even begin to tackle for another decade. Regardless, it is nice to see all my life-goal ducklings written in a row – it gives me a sense of purpose. I want to live in a better world, therefore I must begin with being a better person.

"The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands." - Robert Persig

"Action is character, our English teacher always says. I think it means if we never did anything, we wouldn't be anybody." - Jenny Mellor in the movie "An Education"