Contemplate: What I Want

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I want out of life. Every day passes so quickly and it seems like before I can turn around, time is just slipping away. Seasons change and now, with the first day of October, fall is finally here again.

As a young child and then a teenager, I thought time passed so slowly…I found myself moving from one dreaded thing to the next (homework, growing pains, waiting to grow up). I was always hoping for the next thing to hurry up and arrive. My mom has a saying that’s very wise: “Don’t wish your life away.”

Now that I am grown, it’s crazy how fast the time goes. I never want to look back with regret, but there are certain days from the past, certain moments that I wish I’d savored more, taken longer to enjoy and really experience.

All we can really do is change how we approach the future. And that’s what led me to contemplate what I want out of life. I came up with a list of things, and since I’m currently in my 30s, I decided it made sense to call it “30 Things I want in my Thirties.”

Thanks for letting me share my list with you! I’d love to hear about what you want, no matter what stage of life you happen to find yourself.

I want to pay more attention, not less.
I want to get wiser instead of smarter.
I want to listen more and zone out less.
I want to spend more time with people I love and less time with people I have to impress.
I want to give of myself, my time, my energy, and my resources without ever worrying that there won’t be enough to go around.
I want to cook beautiful, delicious, decadent meals for my family and never take a single photo for Instagram.
I want to travel to distant lands, and have new adventures.
I want to create new inside jokes with old friends.
I want to eat cold spaghetti out of a bowl while standing in front of my grandma’s refrigerator.
I want to wear my fancy perfume, the one I’ve been saving for a special occasion.
I want to stand up straighter.
I want to laugh 300 times each day.
I want to create more and consume less.
I want the days and hours and minutes of my life to count for something.
I want to do a cartwheel.
I want to stop judging everybody so damn much.
I want to stop judging myself most of all.
I want to send more letters and postcards.
I want to find an authentic Hermes scarf at a thrift store for ninety nine cents.
I want to have more picnics.
I want to see each person, really see him or her, and quit lumping them all together as some collective ‘other.’
I want to learn once and for all that the value of an experience has very little to do with its monetary measure.
I want to accept the past for what it was, realize it’s over and let it go.
I want to remind myself that nothing is impossible if you refuse to give up.
I want to make the world’s best deviled eggs.
I want to give more than I take.
I want to leave things better than I found them.
I want us to agree that I can want what I want, and you can want what you want and neither cancels out the other.
I want to throw away the rule book and declare us all winners.
I want to remember every day that all of this is worth it.

Now your turn. What do you want? #WhatIWant