Everyone seems to be waiting for their lives to begin. Waiting to get into college, waiting to get married, waiting to move out, waiting to travel. Waiting for any number of things and I’m sure it has a lot to do with this whole time of transition that everyone around my age is in, but it just seems odd the more I look at it. Because guys, this is our life. This. Right now. It’s began.
I don’t think we should be sitting here waiting for life to happen to us; we have to get up and make our lives happen. If we want something for ourselves, whether that something is to travel or get into NYU or whatever it may be, we have to take steps to make that happen. We have to be proactive. If you know what you want out of this life, stand up and make it happen. Stop waiting. Because even though good things are supposed to come to those who wait, I’m thinking better things probably come to those who care enough to pursue them.
And as for the things we really do have to wait for? Like moving out, like getting married, like graduating college or getting into whatever feild we’re looking at… well, we just have to step back and relax. Things are going to happen. They’re just not all happening right this very second, as annoying as that so often is. I’m not a person who believe in fate or predestination, but I do think that things tend to happen at the right time and that you shouldn’t get all freaked out over it.
Part of the thing with my summer goals is that I realized I can’t keep waiting for things to happen. That there are a lot of things not in my control, but I think if I busy myself with the things I do have some control over life will be better overall. I want to be more like a character in a novel, and by that I mean… well, I mean look at the following quote about great characters, from Donald Maass’ amazing book Writing the Breakout Novel;
They say the things we wish we had said. They do things we dream about doing. They grow and change in ways we wish that we could. They feel things authentically and without turning away.
I want to be like that. I want to be the sort of person who isn’t afraid of saying what she wants to say or doing what she wants to do, and I think that’s what most people want. We want to be uninhibited by our stupid little fears. We want to go after what we want but because we’re small little humans, we don’t. Another quote I love on this subject is from The Second Summer of the Sisterhood and is talking about Lena;
She got tired of herself. She got tired of not being able to say what she wanted or do what she wanted or even want what she wanted.
I’m afraid that too many of us can probably identify with that. A lot of times we act how we think others want us to act, and it’s not because it would be wrong for us to act otherwise, it’s just because the gazes of our fellow humans seem to always be upon us and we worry about what they will think, even when we tell outselves we don’t really care what the norm is or what others think of us. We’re human. We care. And sometimes we sit around and wait instead of going after what we want.
So my new resolve (and comment below if you want to join with me on this one) is to be more unafraid of saying what I really want and doing what I really want and living the life I really want. Join me in pursuing and catching life instead of letting it pass me by, and in being the sort of unafraid person I want to be. I’m calling it the Project for Self; who’s with me? (I’ll be posting more on this later if anyone says they wanna join in on this resolution.)