This year has undoubtedly been a wake up call and a realisation of many truths. Though it feels like yesterday that I walked into secondary school with my oversized blazer or strode up the steps of that stately podium for my graduation, the reality is that I am rapidly approaching 24 and life is not planning on slowly down anytime soon.
As I evaluate the year I’ve had thus far my mind has naturally been cast back to the beginning of this year, 2017.
Much like any other year 2017 started off with a pretty average but cosy new years eve. After rejecting the appeal of going out I ritually settled into my room and mentally prepared myself for the turn of a new chapter. I remember eagerly jotting down all my resolutions and meticulously planning the months to come as fireworks erupted all around me in typical London fashion.
Before long all my ‘plans’ would be forgotten or swept away in the debris of life and as you may have already imagined life didn’t follow my linear plan. Its fair to say that my younger, naiver self would not have described the life I live now when imagining her 24 year old self.
And in many ways it’s that expectation of a fantastical life that often holds me back from feeling at peace with myself. When look at the lives we have lived, the choices we have made and the people we have loved it’s so easy to identify where we may have slipped up, the exact moments we steered left or came of course but harder still is to see how that ‘wrong’ turn might potentially be the start of a breakthrough or let go of the ideal we had our mind of what life is supposed to look like.
It is often the expectations we place on ourselves that hold us back from living our best life’s.
In many ways my realisation of this has freed me up to just experience whatever comes my way with much more ease.
When I remind myself of the fragility of life and the ‘bigger picture’ I feel a great sense of liberation – I’m free to try new things, to fail and even disappoint people along the way.
In fact letting go of that expectation that you hold over yourself like a dark cloud can at times be more beneficial to your well-being and success then any other imaginary life you may have planned.
written by Cassandra Kyeyune
