This is my last post of 2016. I feel inclined to write something reflective - a recap of the year of sorts - so I'd like to share a question I was asked earlier this year.
When I moved, a friend of mine asked me if I was proud of my move to a new city to start a new job. At the time, I wasn't quite sure how to answer it. There are a few things I would describe myself as being proud of - this blog for example is among them, but my move didn't really stand out to me. I realized this was because for all intents and purposes, my move had gone pretty smoothly - it wasn't a labor of love crafted and carefully sewn, stitched together with words and thoughts like the deliberate way I employ with my blog. I enjoyed my new job, over time I met some new friends, and slowly but surely began to integrate with relatively enjoyable, albeit intentional, effort. And of course, I didn't do it on my own - there were many kind, warm, and supportive people, both in the new city and back in my home town, that helped me immensely along the way.
But isn't it curious that sometimes if something isn't incredibly hard, we are less inclined to feel a sense of pride in it? Struggle definitely contributes to our sense of accomplishment (and rightly so), but as I reflect on the question I was asked earlier this year I believe it's also important to appreciate accomplishments that have come with ease. Whether it's a good relationship or a creative knack, we should appreciate the good, simple, natural stuff too.
We pour time and energy into so many things - what we find pride in says a lot about us. And so, for my last post of 2016, I would like to share a collection of ramblings that reflect on this.
I am proud of my move. In my early thirties, I moved to start a new job knowing few people in this new city. As a result, I've grown as a person over the last year. I challenged my long-standing binary assumptions about what it means to be authentic and what it means to cultivate and share traits about yourself, the import of pushing through discomfort to share yourself with others and build relationships (they don't all come easily and that's OK), to grow confidence in my capabilities and have compassion for my areas of learning.
I am proud of this blog. My commitment to it and my openness through it. It hopefully has some positive impact through its underlying message: that hard moments happen to all of us and that they matter, so we should face them honestly. The practice of posting has also helped me live the lesson that good and done is better than perfect and never posted.
I am proud of my passion for city issues and community building, and my attempts (albeit works in progress to varying degrees at this point) to contribute to my new surroundings (and maintain connections to my home town).
I'm also proud of the various reflections and life lessons I've shared. Such as today's post: don't discount the value of things that come easily to you. Discounting our strengths because they come easily is like Imposter Syndrome 2.0 - there's no rationale for it and to own ourselves means truly owning and celebrating our strengths.
I'm not sure if I would say I'm proud of this (yet), but I have recently challenged myself to be less proactive on the romantic love front. It's scary - the idea of not finding a partner to love and being OK with that and furthermore choosing not to orient your life around the pursuit of Love. I think I will always be a bit of a romantic at heart - I know between the right people, Love can be magic, but I also want to let what may happen happen. I'm going to embrace my life as it is.
Finally, I would say that I am proud of the traits I bring to my relationships and life: my sincerity, earnestness, at times ignorance that is (hopefully) followed closely by a willingness to learn, and of course my penchant for all things soulful and cheesy.
So, dear reader, what are you proud of?
Happy New Year!
Want More Love for your Soul?
“And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country
Also here's a New York Times article that gave me (a self-identified introvert) much food for thought this year about how I engage with the world.