2024

In many ways this year was no different than the others - revisited experiences, familiar trails traversed, lessons relearned, and mistakes not yet overcome. Can you have deja vu for a collective 365 days? I’ve been here before; over and over and over again. To put it simply, a year went by and on the surface it can seem as if I landed in the same exact place. 

But then I reflect, dissect, and scrutinize - What I can see now is that I’ve shed the layers that kept me in a loop. 

My default is pessimistic or perhaps a variation of autopilot - it’s in my nature to suppose I can’t get past things, to stay stuck, to be paused. So therefore I don’t get past things, I do stay stuck, and am paused. Muscle memory gets the best of me. Fear is a great motivator to do what feels safe, but robs you of your intuition and integrity.

Microshifts over the past 365 days have led me here. One centimeter towards optimism, towards change, towards authenticity. Over a span of one week you don’t see the ripples but when you zoom out to view 52 of them on the same plane - you see it, clearly. A train that was once going North ends up West with the slightest shift in the track. It’s the same for us isn’t it? We assume, or maybe I assumed, only momentous experiences propel us to change course. I know now it’s the subtle, on repeat, that can make true, lasting impact.

I sometimes wonder what life would be like if I had ended up in the same place. What then? I hate the expression everything happens for a reason. How cheap, lazy even. And at the same time, I do believe every moment can be used for good, for better. I’ve written before that I think God is a patient God and gives us grace to stay stuck until the moment we are meant to move past it. Sometimes we need to marinate until we’re ready for the change to crystalize.