My non new-year’s resolution for 2015

January 2, 2015

in Living abroad

new year toast My cousin Kezia took this photo of me just before we headed out to celebrate on new year’s eve.

 

I’ve never been a new year’s resolution making type of person. Maybe I don’t want to risk failure, but I don’t think that’s quite it. I just never got into that whole list making for life thinking. That said, I have been trying to live my life more deliberately over the last few months. Specifically, I’ve been harkening back to my days as an English lit major and thinking of Henry David Thoreau, of all people. When I read Thoreau in university, I have to say that his writing left me cold. But some of his thinking in Walden has always stayed with me:

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. ….. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life….”

Living deliberately was what I did when I moved to Sweden. I had spent so many years thinking  that I wanted to live In Europe, but never actually making the move. (You can read more about how I followed my dream in this link.) I’ve had my tough times with living in Europe, but ultimately, I’ve never regretted that basic decision to live abroad.

Now I’m finding the need to be more deliberate again in terms of a few things in life. Mostly, I want to do more of my own writing and traveling. But to make time for and support these habits, I have a few decisions to make. So in 2015, I will spend time figuring out how to make things happen for me.

I will keep you posted on how it all goes. Thus far, 2015 has been filled with a lot of laughs thanks to spending time with some of my favorite people–my Carpenter cousins in northern Ohio. That makes for a nice start.

Happy new year/gott nytt år!

 

{ 1 trackback }

The best of 2015 or 6 things that made me happy this year | 59 North
December 31, 2015 at 15:29

{ 2 comments }

1 James January 4, 2015 at 05:08

Hi Sandra
Good luck with the plans.
James

2 Sandra January 30, 2015 at 14:26

Thanks James! Now I need to get them into action.

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