The 2017 Year in Review

The 2017 year has been filled with events; some you choose to like on facebook and others that make you realize that you never want to have a political debate with most all of your facebook friends.

In 2017, we watched the inauguration of the 45th president of the United States; we celebrated the 100th year of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and watched the Pittsburgh Penguins win the Stanley Cup for the second year in a row!  We {not-so} patiently awaited the release of the live remake of The Beauty and the Beast, which starred Emma Watson.  And on August 21, thousands of people sat outside with funky looking glasses and started up at the sun, awaiting a total solar eclipse which was visible from our home continent.

Nope, through all these things, the world did not come to an end, and although the Mayan calendar may beg to differ, the sun will continue to rise and set, and life will continue to continue.

But what made 2017 unique?

Was it just like any other year; and when it ends will you just shake it off like the last year and continue on your merry little way?

Or will the lessons learned from the challenges and the knowledge gained through each success help push you through each and every day?

Will you continue to search for challenges and work for success in the next year?

And how can we use each year, especially this 2017 year, to help us become better in the coming year than we were in the one before it?

So many questions; but seriously. When will you stop just trying to survive each day and turn it into actually living?

"For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, or a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."

My 2017 year has personally brought a lot of change, change which I have been wishing to achieve for months and even years now.

When you are a high school senior looking into colleges and careers, you begin to wish your life away; at least that's what I did.
When you are a college freshman taking pre-nursing courses, you are excitedly and not-so-patiently awaiting the day when you will start your nursing classes, wishing your precious moments away.
When you are a college junior and first year nursing student with a broken ankle, and you have lost all hope for graduating on time, you begin to wish the days and months away which you will have to spend with one working leg so you can become a nurse when you had planned.

I have spent so much of my life wishing moments away - wishing hours, days, months and even years away so I could make it to the next big event of my life which I was so sure would be the actual start of my life.
Once I graduate from nursing school and become a registered nurse, that is when my life surely shall begin.

And once you reach your goal, you strive to reach a new goal; oh, and that is when life shall surely begin, when I can finally begin to enjoy myself.
I just need to get through these three days of night shift and then my life can begin.

But when multiple days are spent thinking that way, you begin to wish your life away; and living a thrive-filled life turns into grudging through a survived-life.

This year's challenges and struggles have opened my eyes; I truly do not want to wish the night to be over before it has begun; I do not want to wish my week over before it has begun.  I want to stop wishing and start living.


For every success, there was once a challenge; and for every new challenge, one dreams of a success.
Every year is filled with challenges, and for the next year to be all the more successful; one must take the lessons learned from the challenges and the struggles of the year before and apply it to the next year's life.

For the 2018 year, I have written down many new years resolutions; and not your normal "lose weight and eat healthier" type resolutions. I want to indulge more in the hobbies I like and the people I love; I want to adventure outside my comfort zone and enjoy wandering through the art of living. I want to become more confident in who I am and what I can do and stop wishing moments away.

'Cause one day I will run out of moments to wish away - and then what is a life well lived?