Things to Know at 25(ish): Number 11
11. Don’t Get Stuck
This is the thing: When you hit 28 or 30, everything begins to divide. You can see very clearly two kinds of people. On one side, people who have used their 20s to learn and grow, to find God and themselves and their dreams, people who know what works and what doesn’t, who have pushed through to become real live adults. Then there’s the other kind, who are hanging onto college, or high school even, with all their might. They’ve stayed in jobs they hate, because they’re too scared to get another one. They’ve stayed with men or women who are good but not great, because they don’t want to be lonely. They mean to find a church, they mean to develop intimate friendships, they mean to stop drinking like life is one big frat party. But they don’t do those things, so they live in an extended adolescence, no closer to adulthood than when they graduated.
Don’t be like that. Don’t get stuck. Move, travel, take a class, take a risk. There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming. Don’t lose yourself at happy hour, but don’t lose yourself on the corporate ladder either. Stop every once in a while and go out to coffee or climb in bed with your journal.
Ask yourself some good questions like: “Am I proud of the life I’m living? What have I tried this month? What have I learned about God this year? What parts of my childhood faith am I leaving behind, and what parts am I choosing to keep? Do the people I’m spending time with give me life, or make me feel small? Is there any brokenness in my life that’s keeping me from moving forward?”
Now is your time. Walk closely with people you love, and with people who believe God is good and life is a grand adventure. Don’t get stuck in the past, and don’t try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven’t yet earned.
Give today all the love and intensity and courage you can, and keep traveling honestly along life’s path.
- Shauna Niequist
Source: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/whole-life/features/25956-11-things-to-know-at-25ish?start=1
2012 New Year’s Resolution
Break down the walls that I’ve somehow built around myself in 2011. Be more open to new experiences and to people. Rekindle old friendships. Make new ones. Invest time in building relationships with the people around me. Be more generous with my time and effort. Get out of this bubble of stagnant contentment. Quit idling around and do something. This is the year of the dragon - the year of my birth. It’s time for some roaring action! Happy New Year, everyone! :)
What nobler employment,or more valuable to the state, than that of the man who instructs the rising generation?
—Cicero
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” Pablo Picasso. We know that training the right brain with music and art has positive impact on the left brain. Yet today art curriculums in schools across this great nation are being stripped away or severely diminished due to misappropriated or mismanaged education budgets. While math, science and reading are vital, creativity should be equally revered and studied. “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” Albert Einstein.
We’ve been conditioned to believe that the only prosperous and respectable career choice reside in the left brain - while right-brainers today have more influence on society that ever before. Every day frustrated left-brainers clock in and out of life to never discover the expanses of their right brain. It’s never too late for closet right-brainers to free themselves from the shackles of convention for the boundless exploits of the unfamiliar. “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” Abraham Lincoln.
—Frederick Terral (taken from Five Manifestos in Life by Kirstin Butler - http://www.brainpickings.org)
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
—Pablo Picasso
I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.
—Audrey Hepburn (via quote-book)
Relationships are constant waves of adjustments
“Sex appeal is something that you feel deep down inside. It’s suggested rather than shown. I’m not as well-stacked as Sophia Loren or Gina Lollobrigida, but there is more to sex appeal than just measurements. I don’t need a bedroom to prove my womanliness. I can convey just as much sex appeal, picking apples off a tree or standing in the rain.”
-Audrey Hepburn (via getty)
