Category Archives: Thoughts

Mistakes

Do you ever wonder if you made the right decision?

Sometimes it’s hard for me to move on. Did I make the right choice? How would have things turned out if I had decided to stay? Would they be better than they are now, or am I just fantasizing better possibilities because I’m not thrilled with the current outcome?

There’s no use living in the past – I understand this. But sometimes I get caught imagining how things would have been and still could be. There’s a thrill in the possibility and in the unknown and there’s this part of me that wants to push out of my comfort zone and surprise everyone – including myself.

But then I wonder, is this me being averse to change? Have I come to this conclusion because comfort is an old friend to me, and I’m embracing what I know? Or am I looking back in regret because I’m so used to this warm familiarity, and wondering what new and exciting opportunities I may have had?

I have really been struggling, agonizing over what I’m slowly coming to realize may be a mistake. I go back and forth over something that I can no longer change because the decision has been made. I cannot go back with the knowledge that I know now and choose differently.

And I wonder if I could. If I had the luxury to go back and make a different decision, I’m not sure that I would have the strength to. Could I deny the obvious logic and details that back up the decision I made to go with the other decision where my heart is?

Or, perhaps there is no right choice. If my mind and heart are pulling in two different directions, does one have to be wrong? Perhaps there are certain things that are wrong about one choice, but other things that are also wrong with the other choice. Perhaps there is no winning between two hard decisions and I’m stressing myself out over nothing. Perhaps if I had made a different decision, I still would be stressing out over whether it was the right one. Perhaps I would be scared and nervous and lonely, missing the comforts of what I know.

But maybe not.

It’s funny sometimes looking back. I once thought that my heart was right here where I am now, but I’m slowly learning that a piece of it is elsewhere, too. How do you get your whole heart back together again? Do you just learn to live with your losses?

Sometimes the hardest part about making a decision isn’t actually making a choice; the hardest part is living with the decision that you’ve made.

But I guess you don’t realize your decisions are mistakes until it’s already too late.

9 Comments Thoughts

#Goals

One of my coworkers asked me the other day, “What is the number one thing on your bucket list?”

One coworker said they wanted to swim with sharks. Another said they wanted to buy a house on the beach in South Carolina and retire there. One girl has an extensive bucket list, detailed with when she wants each to be accomplished.

I on the other hand, was stumped. I’ve never really made a bucket list. Sure there are things that I want to do in life, but I’ve never really thought about those things in detail. I love to travel so I want to travel more, but how do you quantify that? I want to visit so many countries before I die? But then that country becomes a number, and you can’t quantify a culture into a number.

Then that got me thinking about my goals in life. One coworker has a folder on her desktop titled “goals” to remind her every day what she is working for. While I don’t necessarily need explicit goals to work hard and always do my best in whatever I do, I was really inspired by that and really started to consider about the things that I wanted to accomplish in my life.

This took me a long time to put all of these things down. Some of these came easy and some took a lot longer for me to write down. I took things off the list and added things, and couldn’t decide whether to keep some things or not. I didn’t want a bucket list; I wanted an attainable list of goals I want to accomplish within my lifetime.

So after a lot of thought, I’ve finally settled on this list of goals:

I want to have a successful career.
 I’m not sure exactly what that looks like as I’m pretty wide open right now as to what I think I want to do. To put that in a more quantifiable form that would baby step me towards reaching that goal, I would like to be in a different position or in a promoted position in three years. I like my department and my coworkers, but there isn’t hardly any growth where I am. It’s the perfect opportunity to gain some experience and to get me to the next step.

I want to own a house.
Andrew and I are in a really good position right now financially as we should be able to pay off all or nearly all of my loans in the next year. We have a few more years renting from Andrew’s mom (for really cheap) so that gives us the opportunity, after paying off my loans, to save for a house. I would like to, in the next five years, own a house.

I want to start a family.
Andrew and I are nowhere ready right now to begin that stage of our life, but eventually I do want to have children. Ideally this would be after we’ve bought a house and are a little more financially stable for children. I’m having some health issues right now that leave things a little up in the air regarding children, but I would also love to adopt. Whatever form this may be in, I want to have a family with Andrew.

I want to live debt-free.
 I understand that this may not be in this current moment economically feasible, but I want to, for the majority of my life, not have debt hanging over my head. Andrew and I are on track to have all of our loans paid off within the next year (woot!) and that will be a huge relief! Things will change when we get a house, but I never want to live outside of our means. I don’t need fancy things to be happy and I want that to reflect in our lifestyle.

I want to travel.
I know that this is a pretty broad statement that nearly everyone makes, so I thought I would list the top five places I want to visit before I die (that I’ve not already visited). This was really hard for me to narrow down because I want to go everywhere! But obviously that isn’t really attainable. So after much thought, here is my top five:

  • France – perhaps in the countryside or down in the Riviera, I’m not picky!
  • Seattle, Washington, USA
  • New York City, New York, USA
  • New Zealand
  • Prague, Czech Republic

I want to always strive to be more like Christ.
I firmly believe that my purpose in life is to glorify God in all that I do, so it would be silly not to include this on my list. Nobody is perfect, let alone me, but that’s no excuse to just do whatever I please. There are so many women in my life that have such pure hearts that are overflowing with kindness, compassion, and a genuine love for the people that are around them that are so encouraging to me in my faith. I never want to lose sight of what is important and want to strive to be more and more like Christ every day, in my words and actions.

I want to always give more than 10%.
Biblically I am called to give at least 10% of my income to the church, which can be hard sometimes, but I love doing. My church helps so many people in our community, and I love knowing that my money is currently putting a dinner on the table for a family who can’t afford groceries this week, or who can’t afford to pay their electric bill. I also love knowing that my money helps fund children’s programs and keeps the building’s doors open so people can have a place to worship.

I want to live a life where I don’t think twice about giving my money to charities and organizations that help others. People are more important than any amount of stuff that I could collect.

 

So there it is! My fairly simple but written down set of life goals (at least for the moment, haha). Do you guys have a written down list of goals or a bucket list?

5 Comments Life - Thoughts