New Years

Welcoming the new year at the Space Needle is definitely a plan that any Seattle resident can lean on New Year's Eve. And tonight, for lack of a better plan, I was one of them. As I rushed through I5 to make it barely onetime to watch the fireworks show I kept thinking, what's the big deal about celebrating a new year? I've been here before, dressed up in some appropriate sequin outfit with the correspondent sparkly makeup and high heels to live up to the occasion, but the occasion was not cutting it for me. 2013 had been great, I had traveled and seen  more of the world than ever before, but what was I really celebrating? Time gone by? Or time to come? And in either case, did I not have enough regrets to render the occasion short from a reason for celebration?

And so, as the fireworks show proved short of amusing, (good job T-Mobile) I decided that the things that hold me back, those things that I have yet to name but could probably be all categorized under 'fear' as a subtitle, would hold me no longer, and no matter how cliché this is of a new year's resolution it would not be a resolution, but rather a challenge, a change that would make me do the things I would normally find some logical and rational explanation for not doing them or a reason why I could simply talk myself out of stepping out of my comfort zone. One of them, being the most obvious, writing. As an English major, I have little fear of people reading what I write, but I'm terrified to receive feedback that points out what an amateur I am and how I should keep my thoughts to myself rather than putting them in some cyberspace to share them with who ever bothers to read them, not because I despise criticism, but rather because I am my worst critic, and whoever points out a mistake or irrational thought will probably have my blessing in demeaning my work, and my support in attempting to stop me from trying any further. 

So, as I watched the fireworks remind us of why we celebrate this day, I decided that there is no better time to challenge yourself than the very first day of the year, and to (call it what you will) start what you  have been wanting to start and do it shamelessly, for there will be plenty of January 1st gym goers, but little will endure the challenge of a life alteration. So I invite you to start with that change, little or big, that you have been thinking about for a while, and work on it, whether it's a health plan, a work goal or a personal habit, lets give the New Year a reason why to be celebrated in its entrance.