What Do You Want?

If you're wondering what I'm dealing with in my life right now, all you have to do is note that half of my blog posts are about knowing (or not knowing) what I should be doing with my life. It's been a common theme for me; Wanting to know my next step. I think every single day I have some sort of identity crisis about how I don't know what I'm doing, I question if this step will get me to where I should be going, or I wonder why I can't figure out what the heck I am doing.

When I was younger, I had socks for every day of the week. Yes, at 9 years old, I was that fashionista who wore calf socks with the day of the week emblazoned on them in bright colors. Now that I'm older, I've traded my socks for dreams. I have a different idea of what I want to do every day of the week. And it's overwhelming for both me and for the unfortunate souls who dare to ask what I want to do.

But really... Here's what it comes down to for me right now. Everyone asks me what I do, what I want to do, or what I should be doing to get there. Should, shouldn't, want, don't want, five year plans... Forget it. I struggle so much with feeling like I need to know what I want and feeling like I have to have it all together... I've always been that person. It's not so much that I look around and feel like everyone else has it all together and I'm falling behind. It's that I've always had a plan, I've always known what I wanted, and I always taken a lot of risks to follow those.

But I'm over feeling like I have to follow along with the plan I laid out for myself when I was 12 years old. I was still wearing velvet leopard print pants at that point so, clearly, I didn't know what life was all about. I'm done with being afraid to make a choice because it doesn't fit in the "big picture." I'm done living life terrified that every choice might be the wrong one 

I've been reading the book "Let's All Be Brave" by Annie Downs recently. During the chapter about saying yes to things, she says this:

"We don't screw things up by saying yes to the wrong things. We screw things up by watching all the parade floats pass us by and never jumping on one of them for a ride to the end."

That hit me hard.

I often get paralyzed when faced with a decision because I feel like I can't say yes unless I'm certain it's the "right" choice. But this is my declaration that I'm going to say yes to things that I want to without over analyzing whether it is the correct choice. Sure, I'll still pray about things (because that's important), but if there's no major red flag I'm going to say yes.

Side note: please don't read this as "kat is going to say yes to everything", because I'm not. Last time I said yes to everything, I ended up with pneumonia. But this is more specifically about decisions relating to life plans (and lack thereof).

So *raises cup of cold brew* here's to not over analyzing and maybe even having some fun.