I’m not big on planning. I prefer spontaneity and excitement — a little adventure, if you will. So, whenever I’m asked to make a 10-year plan or a five-year plan (or even a 24-hour plan), I tend to put it off for as long as possible. However, the past 10 years have brought me an amazing amount of growth and I think I owe it to myself to use my reflection on them as a meditation on the future and what I hope it will hold. Fair warning: I don’t really believe in 10-year plans full of career goals and life plans, but I do believe in self-betterment, so this will be more of an ~abstract~ life goals list.
Here goes:
- I will be strong
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The past 10 years have seen me through some difficult times. I fought through an OCD diagnosis and kidney stones and a lot of uncomfortable situations. Every time I thought I couldn’t make it through something, I did; and what followed was always worth the difficulty. In the next 10 years, I hope to keep fighting through the hard times, knowing that the good times will be so much better.
- I will prioritize people
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One thing I’ve learned at college is that I tend to put people before everything else. I can’t even count the number of nights I’ve stayed up later than intended because I wanted to catch up with a friend in the library or a fellow resident in the hallway. It means so much more to me to have good conversations with people than it does to have completed another Calculus problem. This is because I know that in 10 years, the people I meet here will be so much more important than anything else I did. I hope that I can keep up the same practice in future years, putting those who matter to me before all the little things.
- I will ask questions
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In college, my mom was called “question girl” because she could constantly be found in the front of the classroom with her hand held high. She wasn’t afraid to ask openly and honestly from her professors and she continues the practice now, boldly asking questions of those around her in hopes of pursuing the truth. As someone who intends to work in a writing-based field, I hope I can follow in her footsteps and never be afraid to ask for the truth.
- I will advocate for myself
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In addition to the importance of questions, my mother taught me about how necessary it is to be your own advocate through her example of fearlessly pursuing what she wants. She isn’t afraid of those with “more power” or “more influence.” She’s completely confident in who she is, and she isn’t afraid to demand space in the world. In 10 years, I will continue to live as she taught me to. I will be unafraid to speak up and make the changes I wish to see.
- I will be self-aware
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As I’ve grown from a 10-year-old to almost 20, I’ve seen myself change dramatically. If my 10-year-old self could see me now, she’d be shocked. It was a gradual process, but I’ve remained open to changes and growth and I’ve accepted new likes, dislikes and passions as they’ve come. In the next 10 years, I will continue the practice of checking in with myself and being open to change so that I am more myself each day than I was the day before.
Life looks a lot different now than it did in the age of Hannah Montana and ‘Baby’ Justin Bieber. I have no way of knowing what it will look like in the next decade, but I know that I will take the things I’ve learned in this decade and evolve from them as we move together into the next.