My Year of Yellow

My life was consumed in my twenties by my ministry job which was devoted to helping people. It was hard but fulfilling work, and I didn’t have a lot of energy, time, or money outside of it to have much of a life or to develop hobbies. My color-coded schedule in my google calendar represented the major categories of my life: blue for work, red for church, green for finances, and yellow for fun. There was very little yellow in my calendar.

So at the end of my twenties I decided to change that.

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Blog writing on typewriter

Blogging Rules

When I began my blog a year ago, I decided to put in place some guiding principles to keep me in line with its vision and purpose (steps toward a thriving, flourishing life), as well as to keep me honest with myself and my readers. Internet etiquette is different for everyone since we all have different expectations of what’s appropriate and beneficial to “put out there,” and it’s so easy to get swayed by other people’s convictions of what your blog should be. Instead of taking on what someone else found appropriate, I put together my own set of rules for my writing. Here is what they were:

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Exercise balls

Exercise My Way

I have never been very fond of exercise. I hated high school gym, which essentially amounted to stretching, running in circles, and attempting to throw a ball for whichever sport happened to be in season. I was gleeful that the second year of required PE (Physical Education) would be waived for any student involved with a high school sport. Gleeful because for some reason they counted the marching band, in which I was a reluctant participant, as a sport. Finally a silver lining to having to wear those terrible uniforms!

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Local World Travel

I love to travel. To set foot in different countries, see historic places, learn about the culture, meet the people who call the place home. I love how much our common humanity shines through the accumulation of differences between myself and each person I meet.

Every time I travel outside of the US, I try to balance my tourism with regular life things (it helps if you have a contact in the country you’re heading to). It is awesome to see in person world-famous sites like the Great Wall of China and Machu Picchu, to learn more of their historic significance and to experience the mysteriousness and grandeur of their construction. But for travel to really become a growing experience, it is almost necessary to get to know the people who live there. And probably not just the people serving you in the tourist industry.

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Relaxation through massage

Learning to Relax

I have a hard time relaxing. I have a million and a half things on my to-do list, and it’s difficult for me to take a break when I know there are so many things that need to get done. In college I was the student who took a break from one class’s homework assignment to do another class’s homework assignment. I was surprised to be told that it didn’t really count as a break—it was just a shift in activity.

I love to be productive. I get an adrenaline boost with every item I check off the list, and I feel good about myself when I accomplish a lot. But sometimes my productivity starts to say things about my worth that I don’t think it should be saying, so I need to stop doing and just be for a change.

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Tools for adventure

A New Adventure Begins!

Adventurous isn’t quite the word most people would use to describe me. Before attempting something new, I err on the side of caution, make pros and cons lists, calculate the potential risks, and run it by a handful of trusted advisors. But even with all of that, there comes a point where I must make a decision without having all of the information. And if I do decide “Yes,” then that is an adventure to me.

So it is with beginning a blog.

In reality, the decision has been a year in the making, but this first post marks the official beginning of my latest “Yes.” Let the newest adventure begin!

 

Image by Dariusz Sankowski from Pixabay.