It’s been an odd New Year for me. Typically this is the time of year when I get all sentimental and I lament on all the things that have happened through the past year. I really like doing that because of the gratitude for the past year and excitement for the upcoming year it produces. This year, however, I went to bed at 11:30pm and I didn’t do a lot of reflecting. I guess this is me getting to it now.
This also isn’t a post to talk about my resolutions, though I do have a couple (retirement savings, read a book each month), but rather a post to talk about the lessons and mindset I learned in the past year that I will carry into the next year. Throughout the pandemic, most people have gotten pretty used to having their plans canceled or changed and I am no different. At times it has been pretty disheartening, but now standing on the other side of a new year I can see all the great things that God has done in my life despite the many failures of my own plans. It reminds me of Proverbs 19:21, “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” That verse is a huge comfort to me and it is probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned in this past year.
That lesson was really cemented on my trip to Peru this past August. On Instagram, I posted a picture of me at Machu Picchu and this was the caption I put:
“This past year has not been at all what I thought it would be. I’ve had opportunities taken from me and failure has plagued the opportunities I did have. I’ve struggled to feel any semblance of progress in any aspect of where I thought I wanted my life to go. About two months ago I wrote a list of five goals I wanted to accomplish in the coming years. Already three of those goals probably won’t happen.
Nothing ever works out as expected. However, sometimes what happens instead is the good stuff. This trip has been a big perspective shift for me and really it has helped me rediscover the gratitude I have been lacking recently. God has been unbelievably good to me, even throughout this past year, and this picture is just one example of the unexpected good stuff.”
I think the moral of my story for 2021 can be well summarized by the Chinese proverb below:
“Sāi Wēng lived on the border and he raised horses for a living. One day, he lost one of his prized horses. After hearing of the misfortune, his neighbor felt sorry for him and came to comfort him. But Sāi Wēng simply asked, “How could we know it is not a good thing for me?”
After a while, the lost horse returned and with another beautiful horse. The neighbor came over again and congratulated Sāi Wēng on his good fortune. But Sāi Wēng simply asked, “How could we know it is not a bad thing for me?”
One day, his son went out for a ride with the new horse. He was violently thrown from the horse and broke his leg. The neighbors once again expressed their condolences to Sāi Wēng, but Sāi Wēng simply said, “How could we know it is not a good thing for me?” One year later, the Emperor’s army arrived at the village to recruit all able-bodied men to fight in the war. Because of his injury, Sāi Wēng’s son could not go off to war, and was spared from certain death.“
When I look at the experiences in my life in isolation they may appear black and white as either a good or a bad thing, but how many times have bad things led to things so much brighter than the good we were hoping for in the first place? The answer in my life is almost always. In my 2020 “Be on the Road” post I reflected on the last decade as I started 2020. In that post, you can see how the Lord’s purpose prevailed and His plans turned out so much greater and more fulfilling than my own plans ever could have! The point is that things don’t happen in isolation. Everything is connected in this life and you never know how one seemingly insignificant thing could affect everything.
The highest peak in Texas!
Another thing I realized in the past year with so many plans not coming to fruition was the importance of still living your life. You have to find things that make you feel alive! A lot of things are made more difficult because of Covid, but you have to find alternative things to do. What you can’t do is wait and do things that make you feel alive later. You never know if later will come. For me, nature is always open. Climbing mountains and exploring is the outlet for my adventurous spirit. The last thing I want is to be retired finally ready to do the things I’ve always wanted just to find out I’m too old to learn a new sport, to climb that mountain, or to go skiing in the Alps. Life is best lived with some urgency. If you want to do something do it now because you never know if you’ll get another opportunity.
The current job training I’m at is very physically demanding and an injury could mean that you will be sent home or pushed back and stuck here in this training environment longer. To a lot of people that means taking it easy and not taking any risks. I can’t argue with that and I completely understand that choice, but just like the proverb with the Chinese farmer, you never know what will happen. If I had stopped practicing jiu-jitsu, something that gives me immense joy, just because I was going to training soon I would have missed out on so much growth and improvement. The work training ended up getting delayed three times. If I had stopped jiu jitsu when I was supposed to start the first time I would have missed months of something I loved for nothing. Now, while I’m here training, I have an opportunity to explore parts of the country I’ve never seen before. I went skiing on an actual mountain for the first time in my life and it was amazing! I took fewer risks than I normally would have, but that still didn’t stop me from flying down the mountain with a giant grin on my face and falling a couple of times. If I didn’t do this now, I probably never would have the opportunity again. I have some big long-term Army things coming up in the future shortly after I finish work training here. If I had that timid conservative attitude about getting hurt it would be cumulatively two years before I would be able to do the things I want to do. To me, that’s not what life is for and it’s not living.
This upcoming year for me is about living life with urgency and enjoying every moment I can. Life moves fast and you never know how much time you really have. It’s also about embracing the “good” and the “bad” because you never truly know the impact those moments have in your life. The only thing I do know is that it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails!