Introduction

I'm starting this blog for this year's upcoming Lent. I've decided this year to give up social media for 40 days, because I believe it will impact my life for the better. But I think blogging about the experience will keep me accountable. I've seen a lot of these 365 grateful projects and I think this will be the beginning of one of my own.

I'm doing this to free myself from the things that social media does to a person--especially a young adult--that I don't really like. For instance, facebook forces gives people a means to document their milestones and achievements in life, right? getting into graduate school, getting married or engaged, having children, buying a house, or getting a new job or a promotion at their existing one, for example. This is a good thing, I suppose, for the people who would otherwise struggle to take sufficient pride in their accomplishments. But the adverse effect of all of this is a sense of competition. So many people--myself included--are bombarded by the accomplishments of peers on a daily basis, and can't help trying to measure their own accomplishments against those of others. It leaves me feeling--often--like I'm falling behind.

In reality, though, life isn't a competition. It's a journey we all take to the same ultimate destination, but what we do along the way is up to us. None of this is groundbreaking or anything--in fact, I think it's something most people would agree about. But somehow, when flipping through albums of beautiful wedding pictures, ultrasounds, new houses, or reading updates about jobs I wish were mine, I find it easy to forget that others are living their own lives and I'm living my own. And here's the thing--I have plenty to be proud of in my own life. They're just different things. And I don't actually want those things other people have. I want to get married some day, and have beautiful children, and teach them to read and love other people and say please and thank you. And I want to get started on my career, too--but at the pace my peers are going, I would never find time to run around New England, or go to graduate school, or live abroad for a few months. They're on their journeys--which look awesome and super fun and fulfilling--and I'm on mine. Getting away from the pressure of social media will hopefully help me to understand that.

So, without further adu, I should explain what this project will do, instead. You may or may not be familiar with the new, trendy 365 grateful projects of instagram, blogs, etc. If you're not, here's a general introduction. Mine will be a little different, I think. I want to post things each day from that day that made me happy, or intrigued me. I want to post pictures, anecdotes, maybe bits of news, excerpts from things I'm reading, etc.

And here's the thing. I'm so much happier now than I was this time two years ago. I was so mixed up. I was engaged, entrenched in work and paying bills and making money. I was rushing forward looking for all the things people told me had value and mattered. Then, my relationship ended, I moved home, then found an apartment, then started seeing other people, then started seeing one very special, amazing, wonderful person. The experience showed me how misguided my values had been. For the first time in a long while I was only working one job--no school on top of that. I had all this time to do other things. I enjoyed my hobbies, I spent time with my family, and I got to know this amazing other person. He was a big help, too, because he had a lot of this figured out already. Living in cities and being in college, most of my peers hadn't been happy. It's like cynicism and bitterness make you cool and happiness makes you a huge dork, as far as my peers had been concerned. But he was happy. He loved (still loves) to enjoy the scenery in life. He takes pride in the accomplishments in his own life, and encourages me to do the same. And he takes me to beautiful places and makes me contemplate their beauty. I want to learn to be like that. I'm so much happier, but I still find myself caught up in aloofness,  afraid to be openly happy, and struggling to prove to myself that I'm "as good" as my peers who have marriages, children, jobs, M. A.'s, etc. I'm hoping this project will help to break me of that.

Anyways, I hope I can inspire some people to do the same. there are about 50-zillion sources I've read that say one of the keys to being happy is being thankful. The fact that there are SO MANY guides out there about "how to be happy" makes me sad. We live in a prosperous country, even if the economy isn't up to par and the job market isn't ready to employ all of us millennials just yet. Most of us have food to eat and internet and television and books for entertainment--really amazing things, when you consider it. Yet so many of us are unhappy! So, again, I'm hoping I can be for others what Chris has been for me--an example of how to put other people's standards out of your mind, how to live fully, how to love yourself and others (that one might take some work for me) and the world around you, and how to be happy.

So this is just an introduction; I won't actually be starting on a daily basis until the beginning of Lent, which is (according to my calendar) March 5th. I hope it matters to someone and helps someone out, but even if it doesn't, I know it will be good for me. Kay, see y'all in March!