Campus Views: New Year's resolution to live a grand life
“We are what we eat.” Many New Year’s resolutions will buzz around what healthy food choices we can offer our bodies. We are, in fact, what we think as well.
From the moment we wake up, our minds are confronted with choices.
How am I going to choose to embrace the coming day? Do I hit snooze just one more time? Cereal or toast, jeans or sweats, judgment or compassion, good hair day or being on time?
Although we are not aware of many of our decisions, our habits of existence are results of long standing negotiations between our predisposed personalities and the way we choose to embrace our environments.
Our bounty of decisions and the processes we go through to reach them, empower, challenge and define us.
As a senior on the fast track to somewhere, I am given the opportunity to envision and execute the next phase of my life. How do I best take advantage of this liberty? How do I listen to my own voice and what factors do I let influence my decisions? How do I make the process of choosing and deciding contain elements of joy, peace and self-acceptance?
In the recent wake of my overwhelmed frenzy, my Nana reminded me of timeless advice. She told me there is no such thing as the right decision, only the best decision for the time. It is quite impossible to know where the other path would have taken you, and it’s best to move forward like you made the best decision
My Nana did not mean to take big life decisions lightly. It’s easier said than done, but by working hard, having patience, doing your research and following your gut, the “best” option will become visible.
It is often the decisions that we barely notice that have the biggest impact of our lives. The attitudes we have when we wake up in the morning, the way we interpret our surroundings are prerogatives that determine the person we are.
As a senior, I feel like I am compelled to know my life plan. I continue to question whether I am traveling on the right path, if I’ve taken the right steps to ensure the right outcome, if I am living life to the fullest. By encasing myself in the constraints of “what ifs” I choose instead to focus on perfection, and my own imperfection, rather than the goodness and worth that are present and that will continue by moving forward.
This year my New Year’s resolution is to answer the inevitable question of “what are you going to do after you graduate” with “I am going to have a grand life” — starting with this moment.
— Grace Kurtz is a senior at Whitefish High School