Goals for this year, and life in general.

Usually, I only write things related to my stay in Chalon in here, but this time, I'm going to write about something else, because this is my blog and I can do that :)

I am a person who is very goal-oriented. Throughout my life, the way I have always motivated myself to do things is by making goals. Some are short-term goals (i.e., "I will study tonight"), and some are long-term goals (i.e., "I will get into a good grad school"). What's more, I have accomplished most of my goals, because once I have a goal, I become obsessed with making it happen. Futhermore, I find that if I do not set a goal, I will not do anything - I will just sit inactively on my butt to rot. I do not want this happening, so over the last few years (i.e., since the beginning of college), I've become OCD about having and accomplishing goals. I never realized this until fairly recently, and I never was completely public about making goals - some of my closest friends and family have known about certain goals, but no one knows every single one of them. I am a very outspoken person, but there are still things about me that no one knows, and there are surely things that I have yet to discover about myself, that I do not know yet.

So, if I have a fairly good amount with accomplishing my goals, why do I always look back on the past and find some way to twist and turn it to make it negative? Can't I just content myself with setting out what I wanted to do? Or am I just another mere eternal perfectionist?

Fact is, I've become very philosophical because of events that have happened to me in the last year. Those who know me best know what I'm talking about, but if you don't know what I'm referring to, it's not important. What is important is what I have taken out of my experiences, both the negative and positive ones. And what I have learned is that life is to be lived in the present.

Therefore, this is my goal for when I'm in Europe this year. I will take advantage of every opportunity presented to me. I am going to look at these next 8 months as a learning and growing experience. I will make the best of everything that happens to me; even if something bad or disappointing happens, I will look for a way to make it positive. If I am homesick, I will write an email to one or two friends or family members back home and get on with my day. I will not dwell on homesickness like I did at certain points while I was in Avignon. Because life is too short. We are not here forever, and as such, we should take full advantage of the time that we are on this Earth.

I also accept going in that I will have some times when things will be unbearable whilst abroad, but this goes with the territory. All expats go through these emotions, so it's normal for me to be going through them. I am no different than anyone else. When December comes around, I will take the GRE again, and whatever I receive, I will accept it. And if it's not good enough, too bad. I can't always be perfect. I also make the goal not to try to be perfect all the time - it's a worthless and impossible quest to be perfect all the time. And I'm done with it.


Wow, I feel liberated after writing this all down.