{"id":7688,"date":"2020-01-15T10:14:42","date_gmt":"2020-01-15T16:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/?p=7688"},"modified":"2020-01-15T10:14:42","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T16:14:42","slug":"happy-new-decade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/2020\/01\/15\/happy-new-decade\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy New Decade"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">Have you given up on life at this point in your life? Don&#8217;t worry, I have too.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">That wasn&#8217;t a good way to start this semester\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">\u00a0Happy New Year! We&#8217;ve entered a new decade, and maybe we&#8217;ll see some change. However, it\u2019s okay to not change, but you can strive for improvement! Small steps is the best way to accomplish things. For instance, it is currently 1:40 A.M., and I am working on this blog post. After I finish this, I plan to work on my passion project, but if I\u2019m too tired, I might try to go to sleep. Yes, this does sound like a bad habit, but when compared to the fact that I have done almost nothing this whole weekend, that sounds like improvement to me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">The moral? Improvement is a relative term that you can bend to whatever you want it to mean. Don\u2019t strive for perfection; just try to do a little better than last time. Now, being the cheesy person that I am, I thought that I should include some quotes that I actually connected with somewhat. For those that don\u2019t know, I don\u2019t relate or associate myself with quotes very often, so looking for senior quotes was a trip.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><span style=\"color: #993366;\">\u201cThe first step towards getting somewhere is to decide you\u2019re not going to stay where you are.\u201d<\/span> \u2014 J.P. Morgan<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">The words are self-explanatory, but I feel like I have to be told to do some things. My first step this year\/decade is acceptance. I will accept that staying up until unreasonable hours of the night is not good at all. I also accept that there\u2019s a very small chance that I will go where I want to for college, and that I probably won\u2019t land my \u201cdream\u201d job. And at this point, that\u2019s okay. Instead, I will make moves to become a better student. I have spent this whole year procrastinating, halfheartedly doing my work, and distracting myself at any time I could. This decade will be my time for becoming a better version of myself. I want to come to peace with myself in terms of everything: romantically, socially, mentally, academically. None of this will happen within a week, month, or year. It\u2019s gonna take time, but I think I owe it to myself to take some time for myself. Basically, I don\u2019t want to be stuck in a rut where I constantly question myself, and I need to stop while I\u2019m not too far behind. That\u2019s what the quote means to me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><span style=\"color: #993366;\">\u201cTomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one.\u201d<\/span> \u2014 Brad Paisley<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">This particular quote will actually inspire a possible passion project if Mrs. Sibley would approve of me switching out another project. We\u2019re all literaries, minus Blake but he\u2019s an honorary literary. Writing is more than a hobby for us. If we compare our lives to a piece of writing, what would it say about you? My book wouldn\u2019t even be a bestseller, but that\u2019s okay. At least I know my closest friends would buy a copy, or maybe they\u2019d share one book and lend it out on certain days. However, I plan to change that. I want my book mean something, and if I need to alter something about myself, then guess what I\u2019m doing?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><span style=\"color: #993366;\">\u201cWhat a wonderful thought it is that some of the best days of our lives haven\u2019t even happened yet.\u201d<\/span> \u2014 Anne Frank<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">As my idol of sorts wrote, we don\u2019t know what the future is bringing to us. At most, we know we\u2019re graduating, but that\u2019s it. This year, one of us could meet the love of our life. Another could get their dream job. Someone could adopt a pet and love it to pieces. The point is that we don\u2019t know what\u2019s in store for us, and it\u2019s a beautiful thing. Mystery can be great, but that depends on your outlook of life. I think we should live every day focusing on the positive of that day. Give whatever bad moment you encountered a thought, but discard it for the rest of the day. Unless it\u2019s something extremely sensitive.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><span style=\"color: #993366;\">\u201cWe are the authors of our destinies.\u201d<\/span> <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">\u2015 Nike Campbell-Fatoki<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">Again, we\u2019re literaries. A good part of our lives revolve around writing. Well, it does at this school. It\u2019s up to us how our life will turn out. Sure, bad decisions can\u2019t be avoided, but even then, that depends on the angle you look at it from. The only thing we can do is take control and rewrite whatever was already written for us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">And so, as of 3:15 A.M., I will begin improving upon myself for the rest of this decade. I encourage those who read this post to do the same. Happy New Decade, literaries. Here&#8217;s a great spring semester, and seniors, we&#8217;re so close to the end. Hang in there because in 140 days, we&#8217;ll officially be done with high school. Then it&#8217;s on to the next stage of our lives.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you given up on life at this point in your life? Don&#8217;t worry, I have too. That wasn&#8217;t a good way to start this semester\u2026. \u00a0Happy New Year! We&#8217;ve entered a new decade, and maybe we&#8217;ll see some change. However, it\u2019s okay to not change, but you can strive for improvement! Small steps is &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/2020\/01\/15\/happy-new-decade\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Happy New Decade&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7688"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7688"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7842,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7688\/revisions\/7842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}