A Mid-Year Check Point
Sunset in London was at 21:22 yesterday and today, it will be one minute earlier — at 21:21. The summer solstice was last week Sunday and since then, I have been patiently waiting for the days to begin shortening, one minute at a time, as fall, then winter, beckons. It seems like I blinked and it was June. How is this year halfway through?
Yesterday I spent an hour or so going through my journal entries from January. I usually enjoy that process as it feels like revisiting an old friend and catching up on what has occurred between the then and now. Unlike previous years, I did not have a laundry list of wishes or goals for this year. On balance, 2020 was my best year ever and so I entered 2021 full of gratitude with a desire to slow down, enjoy the present and immerse myself in business school. I only had 2 meta goals for the year and one of them, at the time of planning, did not require significant effort from me. I assumed the passage of time would bring it to fruition sometime during the course of this year. The second goal, however, did require significant effort from me and for all intents and purposes, is still a work-in-progress and hopefully it will be achieved. Needless to say, the first goal will not be achieved. At all.
So here I am: six months of the year gone and exactly zero goals achieved.
I read somewhere that if you remove time and age from your plans, you will save yourself bucket loads of anxiety. Age in itself does not necessarily induce anxiety in me, however, being the recovering Type-A personality that I am, I do tend to set a lot of store by planning and plans are usually time-specific….so ergo. I have pretty much spent this last quarter mourning that first goal that won’t come to fruition and by extension, mourning what that goal signified and the future it represented. Where do unfulfilled dreams and goals go to die?
This is not meant to be a philosophical post but rather, an honest reflection of the State of Grace i.e., Girl, how are you really doing, in light of EVERYTHING? And the truth is — I am okay. I am actually okay. Not okay as in I-had-a-big-lifechanging-epiphany-and-I am-totally-Zen-about-everything okay but okay as in, I am now dipping my toe in the Pool of Human Wisdom & Acceptance and I am slowly coming to terms with certain truths about life. These truths are universal and have been there since time immemorial but life has a way of making you think that everything you are experiencing and every realm of human emotion you are feeling is completely unique to you,hence you forget these universal truths. Some of the truths I am beginning to genuinely believe as true for myself are:
1. The end of something is usually the beginning of something else.
2. Happiness is usually found in the most simple of pleasures. Do more of the things you love.
3. The future is bright. Don’t live in fear. Embrace it,
So it doesn’t matter that I haven’t achieved any of the goals I have set for 2021. I have grown in so many other ways and those 3 truths?Those are the ones I am taking with me into the second half of the year, and hopefully, by year end, I will not only be dipping my toe in the pool, but happily splashing in it.
I am okay.
