A Year in Review

It's 2014. 2014. We're nearly as close to 1980 as we are to 2050. Just let that sink in for a bit.

While our inevitable spiral towards the great mystery that is the future continues, I'd be amiss not to at least least a few words on the year that was. It's always hard looking back on a year and judging it either wholly good or bad. Each year seems to flash by in but a second, and yet when you examine it in its entirety, you see that there actually was a lot crammed in there! So while there may be great sadness, there will undoubtedly be great joy as well. And even if it were all terrible from January to December, as you know from my previous posts, hardship is what builds you as a person, and it is in those hard years that you truly live.

Last year I feel I did not truly live. There were moments of wonder and new beginnings, but for much of the year I felt dormant. Not happily content, but just… as if I was barely existing. Drifting from one experience to another, with hardly a notable moment between.

This year, that is changing. I didn't even wait for New Years and its cliche resolutions; I started at the end of December. Focus. Motivation. Happiness. I know it sounds like a tired routine from a freshly-brainwashed optimist, but I've already felt a change. I was lying in bed one night and I saw it all roll out before me. My life. Before me as I stared up into the dark ceiling. Each day ticking away. Tick. Tick. Tick. Every second closer to my death. You can't change it. As they say, death and taxes. In that very moment I was scared. Like I was on this terrifying rollercoaster (I love rollercoasters, but the very thought of this one was spine-chilling), that I could neither stop nor avoid. Every moment in my life whizzing by as I sat on the seat, screaming until the bitter end. I was not afraid because of death, but because of how I was merely a passenger in my own life. Watching it tick tick tick away as if it were on a petrol metre just beside me. Each day sitting around doing nothing, another tick of the pump emptying into oblivion.

Scary. It's hard, but I'm changing this. Breaking habits and stopping the negative thoughts that come with living in such a dormant state is certainly hard, but I'm doing it. I don't want to look up and see I've reached the end of the roller coaster, and feel that sadness I know will come if I look back and see I've never really taken part in life.

The Winner's Bible. I've been reading this book, and I'll tell you what, it's one of the most intense and amazing books out there to help you out if you're feeling anything like I am. I'm about a third through, and already I'm waking up feeling more and more focused. If 2013 was the year of absence, then I know 2014 will surely be the beginning of the lifetime of experience and happiness I know I'll find.

So what of 2013? Highlights would definitely have to include my trip to Singapore. Sports victories. Dates (those which didn't work, and those that… did). Getting on TV. Making new friends, even if it meant saying goodbye to many who I realized weren't. Kittens and all their trials and joys. Probably just as many that I've forgotten as well.

Well, here's to a great 2014. May it forever be the year I re-began my life. I hope it brings as much joy to you as it already has to me. There's something about a New Year that says you can do anything, be anything and no matter what happened last year, there is always a new day...