Baby Steps
Current Jam: Households - Sleeping At Last
This song makes me irrationally emotional. Entirely instrumental, and utterly beautiful.
I’ve been thinking about life a lot recently, especially in the long-term (funny thing about college, it has a way of doing that to people. Can’t imagine why).
Going off on a bit of a tangent, I have to admit that there is a slight bittersweet nostalgia for the simplicity that was high school. Everything was predicable and structured. Even when set free for the three months of sweet bliss that was summer vacation, it was a universal fact that us students would return to the same building with a set of slightly more difficult but as equally unremarkable classes as we had just sat through the previous year. The only thing to prepare for each year was a different set of standardized tests.
Fast forward to college, and suddenly life has taken a completely different spin on you. The classes and buildings might be the same each semester, and it is possible to find some sort of routine again, but nothing is ever really the same. I can’t speak for my peers, but I feel this incredible sense of urgency under everything that I do. The pressure to perform in classes is overwhelming, any attempt to establish a social life is both laughable yet imperative, and the thirst for freedom while being bound by the metaphorical chains of adult responsibility is ever-growing. There is so much urgency; to get a job, to maintain a good GPA, to grow up, to live. It’s exhausting.
And so, to bring us back to my first statement, I’ve been thinking about life. A lot. And what I have to do to accomplish what my goals. And I have been slowly changing my perspective on how I need to go about getting stuff done.
All my life, I’ve often been one to wish and hope. When I wanted something that seemed difficult to attain at that exact moment in time, I would pine for it, wish for it, but may not necessarily work as hard as I needed to for it. I’ve watched dreams slip away from me before even having had a chance to grasp at them. Not only was this extremely disheartening, but it was getting me nowhere fast.
Recently, I’ve started to slow down a bit and take a step back to look at these new goals and dreams that I want to pursue, and I’m starting to see a common path needed to reach each and every single one of them. And for the first time, I’m starting to see that they’re all comprised of baby steps.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. That’s the phrase, isn’t it? Completely cliché, but as I grow older, I see that it’s completely true. There are these things I want to do; lease my first apartment and first home away from home, run a 5k and/or participate in a color run, get a job that lasts longer than a summer temp position, etc. And I can’t just wish and pray to make these things come true. I need to take baby steps and follow through if I want to be successful. Life is composed entirely of baby steps, and now more than ever I want to take each and every single one of them if it means that I can live in a place of my own, or get into running shape, or have a steady income to support myself.
I couldn’t imagine having these dreams or, even more importantly, following them as closely as I am now, a year ago. It’s funny how things change. Deep down, I honestly couldn’t be more thrilled to chase these new dreams of mine. I look forward to the future with a begrudging sense of excitement.
I hope that you may all feel this someday, too.