I’ve completed the first decade of my adult life. Where has it gotten me?
A decade ago I was in the middle of my senior year of high school. Those were care free days… Ah geez. With thoughts like that I can’t help but feel unrelenting oldness creeping in on me. I feel an analogy coming on… it’s kinda like that annoying duck at Central Park that inches closer and closer to your picnic sandwich while you’re not looking. You got to stare at the duck so it doesn’t get any closer; but the thing never relents so you’ve got to keep an eye on him and the sandwich or you’ll get no sandwich cuz it’ll fly away at a moment’s hesitation. I still want my sandwich but the quacker already flew away with it. That’s kinda weird analogy. I feel like that right now. I feel like that times 3.7.
Old.
I’m closer to thirty years old than I care to admit. It feels like the stupid bird already flew away with my 20’s so what up next y’all.
But oh, it’s New Year’s Day.
I look forward to these days. You only get one a year and there’s just a unique freshness on New Year’s Day that you can’t drum up at any other time of the year.
So I take a especial initiative.
I have a special name for days like today. Well, I actually ripped it off. Today is D-Day, as I call it. Yeah, I did borrow that phrase from Normandy. To take nothing away from June, 6 1944, my D-Day does consist of a battle. That battle goes on within myself. Kind of a reckoning really. This is how I do it.
I reckon stuff… like how well I did last year or why I didn’t do so well or how I can do better and what my goals are for this year and how I can achieve them and what they will mean to me and what it will be like when I achieve them.
My D-Day stands for Decision Day. So that’s what I do, I decide on stuff and then battle myself the rest of the year to get it done. So, today is a landing of sorts. I land upon a new shore in my life. This is how I usually do it.
Last year I achieved my New Year’s goals. (I hate the use of “New Year’s Resolutions” and here’s why). 2009 was the first year that I hit every single one of my goals. Not only that, but I found that I hadn’t made my goals hard enough. I had nothing to do goal-wise for the last three months of the year. This year is going to be different.
But since we’ve completed a whole wide decade. Today is extra special. Gives a body the chance to look at ten years worth of experience.
So where have the last 10 years gotten me? Here’s the wrap on a decade…
- Moved away from home.
- Graduated High School.
- Graduated church seminary.
- Server a church mission for two years in Santiago, Chile.
- Grew two more inches.
- Learned to speak fluent Spanish (learned Chilean too, kind of a third language if you know what I’m sayin’)
- Enrolled at Brigham Young University.
- Achieved my life-long dream of making the basketball team at BYU.
- Watched my dream fade away in the wake of chronic stress fractures and bulging discs.
- Worked a job.
- Started my “dream” business.
- Failed at my “dream” business.
- Failed another 4857.3 times to start a business. Cool experiences.
- Started an internet business, got that still pumping out cash today.
- Recruited to play volleyball at BYU. That wasn’t my dream.
- Mastered singlehood.
- Finally found the REAL girl of my dreams.
- Married the girl of my dreams.
- Graduated from BYU.
- Have a beautiful home that I call my office.
- Have a baby boy. He is a miracle.
Uh course there’s a lot left out here. Just to add a note here, I feel like I’ve had 20 years worth of experience crammed in to the last 10 years. And maybe I have. Personal life. Business. Family. Church. I feel blessed beyond measure. I adore my wife. I have a beautiful baby boy that I can teach how to fish and golf and hoop. Family is all that matters. In the last 10 years, family is all that has mattered. I don’t reckon that will ever change. If it does, you can give me an artificial gut check with your fist.
Here’s to the challenge of a new decade, not just a new year. Don’t let the eeriness of the future get you down. It’ll all work out. Put your head down and go to work.
