A Theme for 2012

For the past few weeks, I've been working on coming up with a theme for 2012.   After a lot of stops and starts, I think I've finally settled on one I love and one that I think pretty much speaks to everything I want my new year to be (or that I want to be in this new year):

Fearless and Authentic.  Fearlessly Authentic.  Fearlessness and Authenticity.  Has a nice ring to it, huh?  I think so.  So what does this mean for me?  Let's take this apart a little bit:

Fearless: When I say I want to be fearless in 2012, I'm actually being very literal and very serious.  I've often felt like, in the past four years (yes, FOUR YEARS), I've made a lot of my decisions based on fear whether I've realized it or not.  I have a deep fear of being financially insecure, and that fear served as a pretty deep root in my desire to go to law school.  I was also afraid of what others would think if I dropped out of law school.  Would my parents be disappointed?  Would people think I just couldn't hack it?  So I kept going.  For a long time now, I've been afraid of the unknown too.  How is my life going to turn out?  Screw that, how is my choice of what to have for dinner going to turn out?!  I'd like to do xyz, but what if that's the wrong choice?  What if I'm wasting time?  What if it doesn't pan out?  What if, what if, what if, fear, fear, fear.

You get the picture, right?

So this is the year I'm dedicating to being fearless.  To taking the plunge.  To "giving it a try" and going where the road leads me (in some respects).  And this is not just a grand gesture sort of thing either.  I'm finding it very useful in the day-to-day of my job hunt too, or in just how I relate to others -- I'm putting myself out there more.  Or, trying to at least.  This is a work in progress.

Authentic: This ties pretty closely to my goal to be fearless in 2012, but it has more of a focus on also being true to what I want and who I am.  It tempers the fearlessness a little bit (because it'll stop me from packing up my shit and moving to Vegas, which is fearless but totally not me), and at the same time it pushes me forward too (because although I may be really afraid to do xyz, if it's something that hits that spark of "Yes, that's Kahea!" inside me, than it's something truly worth pursuing, you know?).  And my desire to practice more authenticity also stems from the realization I've been coming to this past year, that I make a lot of my decisions based on what others think or say, or the way I feel I'm going to be judged or perceived, or what I consider to be smart, safe, secure choices.

These aren't necessarily bad things, but I just know I wasn't always like that.  I was never careless, but I listened to myself more.  I was more authentic.  And I know that I used to be happier.  Ergo, perhaps if I find the way back to being more Me, I'll find that same well of happiness and breathlessness for life that I used to feel.

Really, when you boil it down, 2012 is the year I'm dedicating to finding my way back to Me.  And I think that's a pretty noble goal.

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Nutshelled: September

Can you believe it's practically October already?  October.  As in, the 10th month of 2011.  We'd might as well be in the new year.

September has definitely been a good, but hectic, month for me.  I began job hunting in earnest, I re-started my Awesome Internship, I began re-hauling my health through major diet and fitness changes, I began this blog, I started volunteering with Stratejoy, I joined a small group at my local church, my best friend got married and I spent a weekend in Hawaii with my family, and for the first time in maybe ever, I don't have a plan for my future and I'm sort of okay with that.

All things considered, these past 30 days have been pretty big for me!

Coming into this month, I didn't realize all the changes that were going to happen.  I knew that there were changes I wanted to happen, but I'd been wanting these things to happen for a while now and they just never turned out (or, a more accurate way of putting it would be that I just never stuck with it long enough to make them turn out).  For example, I'd been wanting to "get healthy" -- whatever that meant in all its vagueness -- for as long as I can remember.  I've tried so many diets its stupid to even think about it.  I've started working out for periods of time, but it's always just fallen to the wayside in the end.  So many things always just fell to the wayside in the end.

But there was something in the water this September.  I mean, shit got done.  Maybe not everything -- e.g. I don't have a job yet -- but even my whole mentality about those still as-yet-to-be-done things has shifted a little and I find myself less crazed by it all.  I wish I had a job, yes, because the money is important for you know, things like rent and food and all, but it's okay that it's taking some time.  Because maybe that means that I'm going about it the right way this time.  And until such a time as I get that "right job," I'm filling my days like it's nobody's business with other things I really care about.  Like health and fitness and Stratejoy and friends and my dog and reading and [hopefully soon] writing.

And if October does happen to bring even more big things for me (like said job), then I hope that this all proves sustainable, because it finally feels like I'm reintroducing things into my life that I've been missing without even knowing it.

I feel like I'm starting to be me again.

I Want to Live a Big Life

Lately, I've been thinking about my overarching goal of finding happiness, balance and a big, bold life.  Specifically, of this deep desire I have of living a "big life".  I know, broad right?  I'm actually still not clear on how to define "big" for myself, let alone anyone else.  But I know that's the sort of life I want to live, and when I hear about certain things, or read about people I know who are doing certain things, I sometimes get that feeling, that knowing, that they are living a Big Life.  They're volunteering with UNESCO, they're traveling around Africa, they're taking language classes in France, they're in an amazing graduate program, they're starting non-profits, they're doing tons of humanitarian work.  Hell, they're getting married.  (Okay, so maybe I'm not in too much of a rush to do that last one, but you get the point).

Now usually, when I dwell too much on this "living big" part, I'm left feeling edgy, restless, wanderlust-y and dissatisfied with what I currently have.  Sort of like, wasn't I meant for more than this?  But that's not the case this time and I'm thankful for that because I really do feel that my life has been and continues to be so blessed.  So instead, this time I'm feeling this sense of...anticipation?  Like I know that [even more] amazing things can happen in my life, and that I can breathe life into these millions of possibilities that are out there.  Does that mean I can hop a plane tomorrow and start working at a refugee camp or on a wildlife preserve or somewhere in the Amazon for the next five years of my life?  Does it mean that I can stop applying for jobs this second and just start volunteering my time away (because, as I'm finding, the good, meaningful stuff is often the unpaid stuff, thankyouverymuch capitalistic society)?  Probably not.  And that's okay with me, because I also want my big life to be a balanced life.

So, like the planner that I am, rather than just jumping head first into something that overwhelms every other area of my existence, I'm doing some research and self-reflection (lots of self-reflection), scoping out the territory of opportunities out there and my own needs as well, and finding ways to live Big and Balanced at the same time.

Some questions for you: Am I the only one that ever feels like this?  Know of any awesome international charitable/humanitarian orgs I should put on my research list?  How do you define a "big life" and are you living it?