You know, I often enter a new year with high ambitions for various aspects of my life ---growth spiritually, moving, focus on my business and my writing, etc. But at the tail end of 2022, looking at my unfulfilled vision board, I realized that I need to make a decision about what I want going forward, and how to get there. I know how to commit, but I’ve been afraid to in certain areas because I can’t control the outcome. I don’t know how to guarantee myself the result I want. And so, I equivocate, I waver; I make room to consider other options that I truly don’t even want. And that which I want, I’m afraid I’ll be disappointed.
It’s tiring. The rational me says I’m weighing my options, but all I’ve succeeded in doing is welcoming doubt into my heart. And doubt always brings its friends, friends that cause my vision, my ambitions to seem askew. I know what I want, but I’m not sure. I know where I want to go, but I’m hesitating. I know how I want to present, but there’s another voice manipulating my emotions.
It’s like that day that I entered into a store to buy pants that I’d been eyeing. I convinced myself I’m wasting money, but as I got closer to the door to leave, I couldn’t shake off the heaviness and disappointment I felt at leaving them behind. And I thought to myself, why do I do this? If I want them, I should get them. The price may be inconvenient, but I like the way I feel when I wear them.
I like how I feel when I think about all the things I want to achieve in my business, my writing, podcasting, my work, my ministry. The things that I’ve written down for myself… It’s like my body levitates at all the possibilities. But somehow, doubt and fear have wrestled the efficacy of the sacrifice needed to get there.
But, in the midst of all this doubt, I’ve been asking myself: What do you want?
This question has revealed my fears and made plain my ambitions and desires. It has revealed that I can’t continue to both nurse and cope with the dissatisfaction that I feel; that I ought to set myself free and pursue my ambitions.
And I understand that I can’t continue to answer this question with an excuse or a reason why I can’t have or can’t do what it is that I want. I’m sober enough to discern that this place I’m occupying no longer serves me, yet doubting my ability to overcome it. Me, who spends most of my days in church praying against some of these things.
Without a doubt, failing, and failing dismally can create deeply rooted mountains that seem impossible to overcome. And the feelings that come with that are great mountains in themselves. And it’s not always that they are impossible to move, it’s that I’ve lacked the faith in myself to move them. And those in Christ isn’t that our struggle? A belief in the God who can do impossible things yet struggle to believe He can help us do impossible things. That we can carry out these impossible tasks.
Again, I’m asking myself: What do I want?
I want more yesses than nos from myself. I want more risk-taking, and less holding back. I want boldness. I want what I want, regardless of the cost. Because what is costlier than time wasted by regret? I want better from myself. I want more focus on the things that I can control. I want greater trust in myself that I can conquer anything because I have evidence of it.
And I decided that I want more of the old girl back; the spicey, the carefree, the dreamer, the one whose expectations were lofty. Because, it has become obvious to me that if my expectations are not lofty, I don’t see value in anything that I do.
I want better for myself. For sure, the road to better is not and has not been easy. It doesn’t look like it has been fruitful, but it has been fruitful in a way that I know will be obvious in due time. There is a time and a season for everything, after all.
I’ve wasted enough time. And I keep finding myself face to face with the things that I want anyway. So, I’m choosing to pursue my ambitions, and all encompassing challenges.
All in all, I suppose it wasn’t necessarily a desire to return to the past, but convincing myself (again) that what I want is possible, I just need to sacrifice for it. The sacrifice won’t be easy, but it will be worth it. And stop running from what I want; stop attempting to balance pride and insecurity on a scale of fear and faith. But persevere despite challenges and disappointments, believing that things will get better. And they will. There are years that ask questions, and years that answer.*
I’m committed.
I’ll continue to pray my way through it. Faith my way through it. And action my way through it. And I’ll make it to the other side.
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* Quote by Zora Neale Hurston
