As only I can.

“The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.”
—Neil Gaiman

Here's to 2014. A new year, with new beginnings, new adventures, new lessons, and new experiences. I want to develop me. My voice, my mind, my story, my vision. My future. As only I can.

I’d like to repeat the advice that I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.

If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. And so, Ron, in short, get out of Salton City and hit the Road. I guarantee you will be very glad you did. But I fear that you will ignore my advice. You think that I am stubborn, but you are even more stubborn than me. You had a wonderful chance on your drive back to see one of the greatest sights on earth, the Grand Canyon, something every American should see at least once in his life. But for some reason incomprehensible to me you wanted nothing but to bolt for home as quickly as possible, right back to the same situation which you see day after day after day. I fear you will follow this same inclination in the future and thus fail to discover all the wonderful things that God has placed around us to discover.

Don’t settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. You are still going to live a long time, Ron, and it would be a shame if you did not take the opportunity to revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience.

You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living.

My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it. The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.

”

- ― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

Waiting....to grow...

Watching city lights from the balcony while contemplating life.

"Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to us, unless we stumbled on a book or a person who explained to us, that we were in fact in the process of change, of actually becoming larger, spiritually, than we were before. Whenever we grow, we tend to feel it, as a young seed must feel the weight and inertia of the earth as it seeks to break out of its shell on its way to becoming a plant. Often the feeling is anything but pleasant. But what is most unpleasant is the not knowing what is happening. Those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step should be, eventually become the periods we wait for, for it is in those periods that we realize that we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and that, in all probability, a new level of the personality is about to be revealed.”

- Alice Walker

A longing.

In the depths of my soul, I longed to be a part of something large and good; something that required all of me; something dangerous and worth dying for. 

- John & Stasi Eldredge, Captivating

Insomnia inspired.

Ok. I'm about to embark on a new life adventure. Gonna be taking off Down Under with my boyfriend and bestie. Every girl should be so lucky to have 2 people in her life willing to do this with her.

Honest confession: I'm the terrified one who can't stop wondering about the 'what ifs'. I feel soooo insecure about this. Stop me, please.

I know this is something I've always wanted to experience, or thought I did. To quit a job that was starting to drain me, and do something completely different. To take a road less traveled. To breakaway from my comfort zone. To spread my wings and fly. To experience working and living in a different country.

Oh dear God, please give me peace and help me to trust You that it will all work out according to your perfect plan.

Delicious Ambiguity

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.” 
― Gilda Radner

The leap of faith. Jumping into the unknown. Taking chances. Taking risks. Being impulsive. Facing challenges. Carpe Diem.

"Love God and do what you want,"
- St. Augustine

Trust God, and take off on the adventure you've always wanted to take. Know that He is in supreme control. Be impulsive. Be you.

"Better to live impulsively with the love of God than to live immobilized by the fear of making the wrong decision."
- RELEVANT Magazine