Comfortable is Just Another Word for Stationary.

The longer I live, and the more misfortunes that I encounter, the more I realize that good can truly be taken out of any situation. 2009 for me was a year that close to nothing really went right, and yet here I am today, not even a month into 2010 and I can honestly say that I wouldn't change a thing about the last year.

Why is it that we are a people who are so afraid to embrace the unknown? Why do we so enjoy being completely set in our ways? How can we possibly be so comfortable moving at such a slow pace? Although it may not be exact, it took around 365 days worth of trials for me to realize that life is far too beautiful an experience to settle for anything less than extraordinary.

It astonishes me how many different versions of myself I have seen this last year. There was a point in these last 365 days where the thing which defined me the most was a relationship that I had with a girl who didn't appreciate me. There was another point where I was mainly defined by how defeated I had become after losing her. This year I have been a clothing salesman in two different venues (even if one of the venues only lasted approximately two shifts worth of work.) I have been a receptionist, an electronics salesman, and I have even been unemployed. I have been a good student, and I have been an underachieving one. My record was once clean, and now I am on probation. I have been called a nice guy, a good guy, an asshole, an enemy, a boyfriend, a best friend, and plenty of other things to go with it. I have been the guy someone was "talking" to and the guy that you can talk to. There were times in 2009 that I was independent, dependent, codependent, transcendent, and unable to be depended on. The list goes on, but the theme remains the same. I used to think that what I had been experiencing was a series of unfortunate events, or a spell of bad luck. Now I realize that I was simply growing up, and that to look at that so negatively makes forward motion an impossibility.

My resolution not only for 2010, but for the remainder of my life, is not to fear change and be open to the possibility that if something is going differently than how I had planned, it may be for a reason. I used to think that the words "comfortable" and "happy" were synonymous, but right now "comfortable" is one of the last words I would use to describe my life, and yet I have never been happier with who I am. From here on out, although it may be difficult, I plan on trying to celebrate my discomfort, and my misfortune. Although it may not feel great while it is happening, I can't help but to be excited about the fact that these are the things which are molding me, and helping me to grow into who I truly am.