Scared!

I’m living in a world that scares me.  I’m living in a world that I don’t understand.  I’m living in a world that leaves me hurting.

I have always felt like I should be making a difference in the world.  I want to leave it a better place when I go.  Over the years I have had many ideas of how I can do this and have tried my best to at least make my little part of our world better. I tried to live a good, honest life.  I have tried to help any around me that I can and yet more and more it doesn’t feel like it is enough.  I feel like no matter how far I reach, how much I give or how much positivity I try to bring it won’t be enough.

I don’t know if it is just that I have gotten older and more aware but it seems like things are just spiraling out of hand.  The hatred that exists in our world seems to be growing.  I don’t understand it.  I don’t get how people can look at a person and decide they aren’t worthy based on their sex, religion, race; why can’t they look at those people and see their hearts, their souls and all the ways that they are the same as one another. 

My heart is breaking for our world right now.  I don’t have the answers or even know what I will do to try and combat this but I do know there has to be something.  We need to find a way to realize we are all human and are all connected to each other.  You don’t have to love or even like everyone but we need to find a way to look past our differences and find a way to show each other respect.  We need to find a way to bond us together instead of continuing to drive us apart.  We need to teach empathy and compassion.  We need to remind people that the things they say do matter.  We do not live in isolation and the things we do or don’t do touch so many more people than we can ever know.

I get that I am probably quite naive in the way I look at things and that I probably should be better informed about a lot more things but I do know I’m tired of seeing our world hurting each other.  There has to be a way to keep the world from repeating the same bad mistakes that have happened in our past.

I find myself thinking about a line from the movie Newsies.  “Sometimes all it takes is a voice, one voice that becomes a hundred, then a thousand, unless it’s silenced.”  We can’t let our voices be silenced.  We need to stand for what matters.  I need to stand for what matters.  

Hello 2017

I spent the last few weeks trying to write a blog to say goodbye to 2016.  I was having a hard time finding the right words.  I don’t think I’m alone when I say it was a hard year.  It was a year that was full of ups and downs with my emotions being all over the place.  It was a year that had me asking a lot of big questions and really coming face to face with my own mortality as well as the realization that my parents are not indestructible.  Dealing with everything from getting sick with the plague, to the loss of my Nan and everything in between, has meant in spite of the good, which really there has still been lots, it will be a year I am just going to let slide into distant memory.  It also means I’m ready for great things in 2017.

We are now a few weeks into 2017 and I have made sure to take a little time to really reflect on what I want to get out of this year.  I wanted to make sure that the goals I set for 2017 were something that I could actually work towards and accomplish since I didn’t manage to actually complete any of my 2016 goals.  After much thought I think I’m ready to commit my resolutions/goals in writing.  I’m feeling very optimistic about 2017.  It is going to be my year.

My goals have evolved a little over the last few weeks as I tried to lock them in.  It started with a quote I heard while watching a Christmas movie, “try to be the person you want to become.”  This resonated with me and stuck.  I also joined a bullet journal group on Facebook and as 2017 got closer everyone was sharing different ideas and thoughts for goals and how to track them.  One of the ideas that kept coming up was ‘17 things in 2017’.  I loved it and decided that I would come up with 17 things to make my year feel fantastic while working on things that I want to change.  These are all things that matter to me and will help me be the person I want to be, or I hope anyway. 

It wasn’t as easy as I thought to come up with 17 things but in the end I’m super happy with the way this list turned out.  In no particular order here are the things I want to accomplish this year.

1. Do at least 5 different hikes this year. (hiking friends let’s make plans)

2. Get paid to take photos for someone (so if anyone is looking I come cheap and take pretty pictures….hehehe)

3. Visit somewhere in Alberta that I have never been. (Totally thinking Jasper…probably let me get in a couple hikes too)

4. Volunteer somewhere.  (I have always wanted to do this but never made the time for it.)

5. Try a new recipe each week.  (Breaking out the cookbooks and getting creative makes my heart soar)

6. Learn to meditate.  (I’m not so sure I’ll be good at this but I think finding calm and stillness in my world would be a huge help)

7. Read one book a week.  (Dammit I have been trying to hit 50 books for years…this year I will make it happen and add two more for good measure)

8. Host a dinner party each month.  (Totally goes with trying new recipes.  I want an excuse to cook and I love cooking for lots of people)

9. Do a 10k Run.  (This one scares me but I am registered to do one in May…eek!)

10. Plan trip to New York and create a budget for it.  (I was supposed to go this year but circumstances changed so instead I will plan a new one to be taken in the near future)

11.  Meet my great nephew. (This one is the only one I know for sure I will get to check off.  Sometime in the next couple months our family will have a new generation)

12. Do something in British Columbia that I have never done before.  (For years I have been going to the island and for years I typically always do the same things…this year I will find something new to do)

13. Declutter the house and start planning and packing what I need for my new house. (A new house is very soon to be in my future so I might as well start early so it’s not crazy when it comes time to move)

14. Take 1 hour a week for quiet me time.  (This goes along with the whole idea of meditation but is a separate goal and will be counted separately.  I also suspect this might be one of my hardest goals because I realize that I don’t spend a lot of time in silence anymore)

15. Create a bucket list.  (For some reason with all my love of lists and plans I have never actually created a bucket list and I think it’s about time I had one)

16. Go on a date.  (or many dates.  I figure it’s time to get social again and try out the whole dating thing again…hehehe)

17.  Host a family game night.  (I want to try and create more connections with my family again and I figure this could be a fun way to do it)

I’m super excited about tracking all of these goals in my bullet journal.  (I’m also super excited about the whole concept of bullet journaling…seriously google search it and curse me later).  Here is the tracker I created for the year.  It’s not super pretty but I love it anyway.  As I finish the goals I will colour in the circles. 

My most successful year in the last few was the one where I not only wrote these goals down in my blog but also checked in on them monthly through it, so that is once again my intention.  As you can see from the picture above I am also tracking all of these goals in my new bullet journal to also keep me on track.  I am bound and determined to make this year amazing, one way or another.