Thoughts for a new year

It certainly feels like January...

As January comes to a close, I wanted to share something I have been thinking about this month.

It is my sense that people tend to get reflective at this time of year. I've never been one to set New Year's resolutions, but as I enter my third year in the "real world" without the structure of a school year to ground me, I am starting to understand a new purpose the New Year might serve. With each year that passes, I learn how easy it is to let time slip away without placing your mark on it. For me, the more I can accomplish and experience and do and make, the more I can slow the scary rush of time. Now that I am an "adult", it seems that January will replace September as a time to make plans for how I will fill the year ahead. 

With these thoughts in mind, I asked a few friends to share how they feel about goal setting and thinking ahead and what it means for young people like us. I've collected the responses I received below.

Reflecting on being a part of a team:

It's definitely a reflective time of year-- having turned 25 and with the new year rolling around, it was certainly time for some forward thinking. I think most of all I'm thinking about behavioral changes-- changes that last. When it comes to staying healthy and not spending too much money-- those are things that people say, wish and try to resolve every year. This year I'm hoping to take some serious strides with a fresh outlook.

I think the biggest piece of the puzzle that I've been missing is teamwork-- and that's also something I realize I long for more and more after having graduated from a team that I was required to be around and work together with for 5 years. I say "required" but of course it was the best team experience of my life. I miss what it's like to have teammates and to be working toward something that's bigger than yourself and bigger than what you could dream of. So, recently I have become a part of a team that has formed to embark on a new journey-- three of my friends and I are starting our first small business and I couldn't be more excited about it. With daily inspirational texts, the sharing of advice and rotating cooking dinner for each other, I think it will be a successful start to the new year. We will be refraining from drinking (which will be quite the belly and wallet diet) along with drinking nutritional shakes for breakfast and lunch every day for two weeks. I hope to come out of it feeling cleansed, rich and healthy. The goal is to not have this be a one-and-done event but rather it will teach habits and inspire a change mentally and physically. 

Being part of that team in college is what made me into the person I am today and I am excited to move forward with this outlook and support system and knowing how I get things done best. So here goes nothing, I'll let you know! - Contributed by EH

On listening to your gut and on positive thinking:

The New Year

For me, the New Year brings new opportunities, "new beginnings" and "fresh starts". I mean that literally because I (at 25) left my hated financial sales job a few short months ago in hopes of finding my "passion" in life. That said, I'm now interning (yes, I realize I've taken a step down...this means lower pay and no health benefits) at a young startup in Boston and am truly enjoying my time here so far. 

All that said, my biggest resolution for this year is to follow my gut (or my heart), wherever that may take me. For most of my life, it seems like I was constantly being guided and influenced by what my parents wanted...I swam in high school and college because my mother wanted me to (even though I hated it). What I'm trying to say, then, is I'm an adult now, and it is my duty to myself to make my own decisions. I swam through high school and college and stayed at my God-awful finance job for far too long...it is now time to live the life meant for me and decided by me. 

I'll add a second resolution for good measure, one that I believe we all can benefit from...and that is to remain positive, and be optimistic, about all things in life. See the glass half full, no matter what unpleasant situation presents itself. - Contributed by JS

On making big changes:

In the last couple months of 2013, goal setting became a pretty scattered and confusing task for me. I had a new thought almost every day of what the "perfect" career for me would be. I know what I like to do and I feel like I've developed a pretty solid skill-set in my current job, but am also acutely aware of the skills I need to develop and what I want to do more of in a future job. I finally thought I had everything figured out. I set goals and went on a couple of interviews, but when I later went to visit my sister at grad school I immediately realized that I was completely off base. What I wanted, and what was a far more fitting path for me, was to go back to school and pursue a higher degree in what I love to do. I thought I had been incredibly proactive up until that weekend and had created a great game plan for my future - but all of that changed in an instant.

Three months later I am taking classes, have signed up for the GREs, and am exploring which schools I want to apply to for my Masters next year. The point of all this is, I think goal setting and thinking ahead career-wise is super daunting for people our age, but as long as you're willing to ride the waves and be open to change, then it's better than accepting the "tolerable" jobs lots of 20-somethings find themselves in and not looking ahead at all. Goal setting is productive, but life has a crazy way of knocking you off course and I personally don't think it's a bad thing in your 20s to take that as an opportunity to explore. - Contributed by EG

"I'm twenty-five! What do you have to say about it?"

While celebrating my birthday, I managed to gather a good crew of people in one place. To add to the festivities, I asked everyone to leave me notes for my 25th birthday. I started out the night with these words: "I'm twenty-five! What do you have to say about it?"

A clear theme of "car insurance rates" emerges...

 I couldn't resist posting a few good snapshots from the night!

On "getting the art out"

To begin this project, I wanted to start off by talking about why I like this idea of "getting the art out" and also by asking other folks what they think about it.

I placed that quote in a prominent position because when I read it for the first time, I realized that it exactly described my own fear. I realized that I harbor this weird, underlying anxiety that I might find myself at the end of my life never having created, never having built anything that was mine. It sounds over-the-top when I write it like that, but I swear the relief I felt was real, when it occurred to me that I have a choice in the matter. And so I begin. 

I was curious to learn what others might think of this concept, so I reached out to a bunch of people from various parts of my life to see if they would be willing to share their thoughts. The prompt I provided and responses* I received are shown below:

“It’s sad when people leave the world without ever getting their art out of their heads. I picture older people on their deathbed with all of their art still in them; I think that’s a big tragedy. ” — Josh Long

When I read this quote from The Great Discontent’s interview with Josh Long, it struck me. I realized that I wasn't doing a great job of “getting the art out” in my own daily life. If you would like, please take a few sentences to share your reaction (if any) after reading this quote.

Contributed by Katie Rice

"This quote also struck me. I think of myself as a writer and a writer is an artist, so I think about the balance between work and life and art all the time. I work a 9-to-5 job that’s pretty flexible and pretty great in terms of 9-to-5 desk jobs but if I could I would spend my time writing and reading. When I graduated college I somehow thought time would open up for me and I would spend all of my evenings writing and my weekends in cafes scribbling away in a Moleskine notebook or something. It’s a lot harder to make time for writing after a 40 hour work week, errands, working out (if I’m ambitious ha) and the daily NYC commute than I thought it would be. I think it is all of the daily stuff that keeps people from exploring all of the art they have inside of them and it is a tragedy. I notice a difference in how I feel emotionally when I’m making time for writing and when I’m not. I feel better when I’m creating something.

Everyone has a story to tell and I think it is supremely important that they tell that story, or “get the art out of their heads.” In The Things We Carried by Tim O’Brien, he writes a lot about the necessity for soldiers to tell the story of their time in the Vietnam War. His narrator says, “By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up others.” Leaving behind your story, understanding your story and making art of it: that’s how I think you survive this life." 

Contributed by a friend :)

"I'll start with an embarrassing personal moment.

I was, let's say, 13 years old. And I was having a hard time. It is difficult to say what was wrong exactly but I think the best diagnosis would be puberty. After a variety of melodramatic, parent-bating behaviors (which I no longer remember the details of) my folks sat me down for a talk. Me on a couch, them facing me with a bright window behind them. I could barely see their faces. It was out first formal discussion about feelings. Or rather, my feelings. Disastrous.

My father said, "So what's wrong. Why are you miserable."

I was immediately at a loss. Both my parents were sitting and listening to me. This was my opportunity to tell them everything that was wrong with the world and with me. I felt pressure building up inside my body, inside my brain. What was wrong? How could I explain it? I couldn't put it into words. I panicked. I opened my mouth and gave myself over to whatever answer might pop out. 

I burst out in a wail: "I just have all these stories in my head! They'll never get out!"

Dead silence. My father turned to my mother. "Forget it. She's fine." He walked out of the room. After a minute of further silence, she followed suit. I was left on the couch, feeling like a ripe fool. I had said what was true, but in a way that utterly failed to communicate the terrible enormity of it. 

Eleven years later, I feel I can see it all again from my parents' eyes; their daughter, sitting on the couch, wailing about stories. How unapproachable the confession must have seemed. (I was their first kid, and they were too far from their own teenage years, I think.) How intimate and therefore, embarrassing. And maybe, also, how irrelevant. But it wasn't really irrelevant. It was the opposite of irrelevant. It was everything. It was the violent epiphany of my own finite being. It was my first attempt to articulate that I might have the potential to do something in this world, something big and "artistic" and beautiful - something unique to my perspective, to my voice. And with that daring inkling, that first compulsion to burst outward and leave a mark upon the world, there also came doubt. Fear. Certainty of failure. All born from that first, pubescent moment when you realize that your life is not endless, your self is not limitless -- and therefore, your ideas are finite, your canvas is finite, your time is finite, your means to create must be entirely your own, and how will you do it anyway? This is why I was genuinely miserable. Well, this and brain chemistry.

"Getting the art out," to use Josh's phrase, was daunting at 13, and it is still daunting at 24. I'm getting the art out where and when I can. I've been standing at the edge of the Philly "broke-ass" theater scene pretty much since graduating, watching what people are doing in the middle. Every year I stride a little closer to the center. But what does that mean for my day job? Or sleeping? Or my love life? Or my sanity, really. My parents aren't the audience anymore. It's friends, strangers, Philly, the tri-state area, the world -- and cynical ME. Worry-central. Is it worth it, so that Josh Long doesn't find me on my deathbed, and say "it's sad" while I feel my head full of ideas that are going to die with me? Just so I don't disappoint 13-year-old me?

I don't know. I don't know. I think the most I can do is decide, "this idea touches me, this project is important to me," and calculate my personal economy of health, wealth and finite time around that choice. At 24, really, taking one project at a time is enough; and maybe the most sane thing I can do. 

After writing out all of this, (and... yikes, re-reading it), I think I have this thought to add in response to Josh Long's quote: Be joyous for the art you do get out. Be joyous, be proud, whatever floats your boat. It's okay if some of it dies with you. It's okay to focus on just living sometimes. Take it all one project at at time, and feel good about what you're doing. However I might self-mythologize the weird, dire, universal moment of being 13, I was making myself freaking miserable with the caps-lock TRAGEDY and IMPORTANCE of it all. So don't be 13 about it. Be 20-something, and work it out one project at a time."

* I will add additional responses as I receive them.