Hello Friends, Family, and people who I don’t know but hope to know someday,
I am overwhelmed with the amount of love and joy I have received over the past few days. Today I turned 27; the year that God has been preparing me for. The year that I will spend mostly serving my Father and others as I travel all around the world! My friends and family know I am not a huge birthday person. Most years I take it off of Facebook because I don’t like the attention on me. However, this year was different. I was excited, for like many days leading up to my birthday. I do not recall being more excited for a birthday than this one. I believe the true excitement is because with each passing day, the Race becomes even closer. It becomes even more real; literally a month from now I will be AT TRAINING CAMP! How amazing, crazy, and beautiful is that? I know that my 27th year will be one of the most memorable adventures of my life and I am just so ready to get it started! 🙂
I wanted to try and reflect, ponder, and discuss 27 things I have learned or think are important!
1. Love. Such a simple word, but has such powerful action and meaning.
2. Listen. There are so many things we miss when we don’t listen.
3. Serve. Do things selflessly, life feels so much better when you do!
4. Make time for others. We weren’t created to live alone, life is awesome when you do it with other people!
5. Self-love/respect/time. Be sure to build yourself up, love yourself, and recognize when you need to recharge.
6. Pray/meditate/quiet time. Whatever you believe/whoever you worship, spend time being still. We need breaks from this chaotic world and learn a lot just from sitting quietly.
7. Be spontaneous. Sometimes the greatest things come from spontaneity.
8. Do you. Not all the time, obviously, but do what makes you happy without worry of judgement. Do things that make you feel good! That being said…
9. DON’T JUDGE. It’s not our job, and it really makes us more miserable. When mad or frustrated with someone, try saying/thinking something nice about them instead.
10. Unplug from social media/the world. A lot of times, I actually get more stressed and upset when I am constantly on social media/reading the news. We don’t life in a peaceful world and we always feel that we may miss out. It’s okay, we don’t need to know everything/be first to know. We no longer know how to communicate without our noses in our phones or computers. It’s sad. Kids don’t know how to interact without texting, Snapchat, Insta, Facebook, etc etc. THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE!
11. Go outside. When’s the last time you REALLY spent quality time outside and looking at nature. It’s beautiful and makes you feel so good, so small, it’s not all about you and in a way, that’s refreshing, at least for me it is.
12. Smile. Next time you are at work, out in public, look at people’s faces. How many of them are smiling? I bet not many! Let’s make smiling happen more often. Everyone feels better from smiling. As Buddy the elf once said, “smiling’s my favorite.”
13. Release control. It’s cool to have plans and goals and make them; however, there are things we just can’t control so stop trying to make everything perfect and plan for every possible scenario. We miss out on other stuff when we try to figure out everything and play the “what if,” game.
14. Learn. From others, from books, classes, kids, mentors, whoever. Life is full of learning possibilities. Never stop trying to learn, you don’t know everything, so might as well be open to being lifelong learners.
15. Teach. Teach something you are good at or passionate about to someone else. You don’t need a teaching degree to be a great teacher.
16. Communicate. I have found that this is the reason why so many things get screwed up/are harder than they need to be/why problems are not solved. If you have a problem, speak up.
17. Ask for help. We all need help; some more than others but never feel too proud to ask for help.
18. Indulge/splurge every once in a while. Everyone deserves a little happiness and the right to be spoiled (even if you spoil/treat yourself).
19. Dance/sing like no one is watching/listening. Yes I said it. There is something so powerful, so freeing when you dance and sing your heart out! It feels awesome and is just fun! It’s the small things in life!
20. Make new friends (but keep the old)/meet new people. I have an advantage in this department. I have been slowly meeting/getting to know 60-ish new people who are my squad-mates and will be my family next year. There is something so wonderful about getting to know new people/hearing about their life experiences. I am growing so much from them and are just so excited to “do life” with them next year.
21. Community is key. Surround yourself in a supportive group of people. They pick you up when you are down. A great community is a game changer. It is necessary. Don’t have one? Find one! You’ll be glad you did!
22. Do nice things for people/random acts of kindness without looking for acknowledgment or credit. It’s not about you, don’t make it about you. Find something nice to do and don’t boast about it. It means more when you do it for others without seeking praise. It also may not look as nice when you seek for approval.
23. Tell the people you love, that you love them. Showing that you love people is important (hence why it was the first thing I thought of). But life is short and precious so don’t go one single day without telling the people you love, that you love them!
24. Read. I know, a lot of people don’t like to read. However, there is something so special about where a book can take you. It’s magical.
25. Spend time with kids and youth. I wouldn’t say that this past year (before I found out about the Race) was all that great. I was miserable. The only thing that kept me going were my youth group, my campers, and occasionally my students at school. They are filled with excitement and energy that I don’t have a lot. They view the world differently and have not been “ruined” by “adulting,” yet. They are just awesome so spend time with them, invest in them, build them up. They deal with a lot more crap then we did growing up so make sure to help them out. Hang out with them!
26. Explore. Your house, your neighborhood, your country, the world. Go to places you’ve never been. Don’t limit yourself, the world is too big to limit it to specific areas you always go to throughout your whole life. There is SO much out there to see, go see it!
27. Dream big. Don’t limit yourself. Do something/try something you’ve always wanted to do. Stop letting the world’s standards dictate what you want to do. Don’t blame society or where you grew up on why you can’t do x, y, z. Break the culture, don’t do what has always been done. Be an individual.
I’m sure there are more snippets of things, but these are the first 27 I thought of! Please use these to start a conversation! I love to talk and so do some of my loyal readers! God Bless you all! Thanks for being in my life!
