It's that time of year again when we look back at how the past year went, and then look forward with optimism and hope!
Let's take a quick look back at my old blog post...
Did I succeed in being more positive this year? Hmm... that's a tricky one. I feel like it was easier to be more positive before I moved. The move challenged me in a lot of ways, I had to start over with friends, a new school, a new church... my whole life basically stopped in Ann Arbor and began again in Madison. It's hard to not be cynical and to not compare my life now to how it was a year ago. On the other hand, I think that as time goes by, I'm learning more and more about the great things that Madison has to offer, and that God has provided me with.
This year, I did do a lot of things that I never would have imagined would have ever happened.
I went on a 15 mile hike up a mountain, I went snorkeling in the Bahamas, I made homemade pasta, dumplings, and lattes, I went to San Diego and then Mexico to build a house with people who would become my best friends, I moved to Madison, joined cross country, and I got an adorable puppy from my awesome parents(my mom insists and I agree with her on the last part :)).
This year was AMAZING and I wouldn't want to change anything that happened. I'm so grateful for my life that God has placed me into. Now moving forward!
After a few weeks of thinking about New Year's resolutions and goals, I have decided that my theme for this year is going to be the year of not wasting time/being more productive.
I received an email from Spotify a couple of weeks ago about the amount of time that I spent listening to music and it said that I spend 17,353 minutes listening to music, which is 289.2 hours which is 12.05 days straight of listening to music. I know that this number is wayyy low compared to the amount of time I actually spent in 2016 listening to music because sometimes I went weeks without spotify due to no internet! Why am I telling you this?
Well, I thought, "What if I could see how much time I spent doing other things, like reading, eating, SLEEPING, and watching Youtube?"(I don't have Netflix so Youtube is my main source of entertainment).
Upon further observation, I decided that when school started, the amount of time that I spent on the internet increased... a lot, preventing me from doing other things that I enjoyed. There are a lot of things that I want to accomplish this year; I would like to invest more time into playing guitar, perhaps begin training for a marathon, and begin meditating a little bit in the mornings to relax/refresh the mind.
Also, I read a scripture a couple of days ago that I really liked and definitely want to keep in mind for the year:
Proverbs 14:23
"All hard work brings a profit,
but mere talk leads only to poverty."
This may sound CRAZY, like I'm throwing myself into unnecessary stress and chaos, etc, but I think that if I work on being more balanced, then it will work out and become my normal lifestyle.
I feel ready for the new year!
Wishing you the best year yet,
Joy :)
