Let's take a walk
I posted on Instagram at the beginning of the year talking about my word for the year. I had seen people in past years declaring a word to strive for during the year and I was always scared to do that; to put so much pressure on one word. This year, while at the Passion Conference, I heard the word "walk" over and over again and it spoke volumes.
I haven't talked about my word "walk" very much since the beginning of the year, but it's still been in the back of my mind. There are so many different paths in our lives that we can take, rarely knowing which ones are right for us. It takes trust in my God, my family, my friends, and myself to dive into a path with a whole heart and be proud of it. However, diving into things isn't always what's necessary, I'm learning. Diving can be beneficial when you've thought about it and know it's going to be a good outcome. However, diving is also scary; jumping feet first is scary, and running is even scary. Walking, though, is doable. It's cliché, but taking one step at a time is still moving. Walking is still moving. You may be walking in the wrong direction, but you'll figure that out eventually, so don't get too worried about it. In the grand scheme of things, moving an inch forward is still getting you to your end goal. Granted it might be a slow process, you're still pushing for your goal.
I used the word "pushing" in the last sentence for a reason. You can argue that inching forward towards a goal isn't really pushing forward, but I beg to differ. There are days that taking one foot out of your bed sheets and having it hit the floor is pushing forward. I think we've all had those days. Making breakfast is pushing forward. Going to work or school is pushing forward. We focus so much on the future, what we should do, what we shouldn't do, what we could do if we had this or that. We forget to take the time to recognize the simple things we can do in the present moment to move forward with our lives. Choosing to not make a big deal out of small situations, breathing for once, drinking water, laughing at simpleness rather than getting angry at it, understanding that we're all on different paths. "Pushing" means to exert force in order to move something away from something else. Force can be relative though. Individually, we have different strengths. Pushing mountains may be an everyday activity for some, and pushing grains of sand may be all another person can take.
With that being said, you should always try to push yourself a little further each day. Somedays it won't be possible, and that's okay, but like I said, making steps to your closet to get dressed is still walking. Doing a little dance while making your breakfast, smiling for the first time that morning... those steps? Walking. Pushing forward.
Being able to recognize your movement and attach it to a meaning is your power. Any walk of life, any season of life can be, and is, a monumental part of your healing and growth process. It might seem like I'm speaking directly to my generation because we are so young and seemingly have so much time to learn and grow left, but I'm talking to you too. No matter your age, our different walks of life have situations where walking, let alone diving, seems completely impossible. We detach and make moments seem minuscule. When you're low, it's easy to say things don't matter, nobody cares, and what's this going to do for me in the long run anyways? Some situations matter more than others, of course, and one small moment out of the total years you're going to live may not be that important in your eyes at first... but it can be. You get to pick and choose when you walk and what steps are going to shape your life. The way you walk towards or away from certain people, places, chances, opportunities, and words will work its way into your life in the simplest or biggest ways.
New Zealand has made me walk in a lot of different directions, and I'm thankful for all of them. Coming here was a new path in itself, without even considering the paths it would take me down while being here. I've been shown the truth path of friendship, the honest path of my heart and what it loves, and the realistic path of my near future. I definitely dove into this path without knowing what was going to happen, but it's been a slow walk ever since. Loving it already has been a slow, one-step-at-a-time process, I promise you that. Waking up every day, 5,800 miles from home, without my best friend (shoutout Mom), and being given the chance to either get out of my comfort zone or hide from it all? One. Step. At. A. Time. Sometimes, there are even minutes between each step because I'm worried about the outcome.
The greatest thing about walking is that it eventually takes you where you're going, despite the pot holes, road blocks, and pit stops. I've walked towards and picked up some friends I'm hoping to call mine for the next few years at least, I've walked towards and accepted some major life revelations about who and what I love, and I'm still walking towards what I can do in the future to make my life beautiful. I've walked past some things too. Old friendships, old relationships that were holding me back, and some bad choices I could've stopped my momentum for. There's nothing better than knowing that your life is made up of what you walk past; it's shaped by them in some cases, yes, but the past is not you as a whole. A part of you, but not all of you. Again, being able to give those steps importance or no importance, no matter how heavy your foot feels when walking out of the mud they put you in, is your power.
Where do you want to walk?
Does it matter how long it takes to get you there? Should it?
Give yourself some credit, life has paths and yours are different than those around you.
P.S. Dancing your way down the path might make it easier :)
Love it already
- Tess