Remember

I read something this weekend that really made me think about my life. It was a simple statement--remember who you wanted to be.

Remembering is powerful. Our memories can cause visceral and emotional responses to certain situations that can affect us in incomprehensible ways. The time when I was depressed caused me to have many visceral emotions from my memories that severely changed me for the worse. That was not the person that I wanted to be. As I have becoming my old self, I still need to remember who I wanted to be when I left Utah, left Washington DC, and when I came to medical school. Some parts of who I want to be have changed, but the core of who I am has not changed. I need to remember that person and not let New York change me into something that I am not. New York has been changing me since I moved here and some of these changes were an impetus for my spiraling depression. I want my memories to empower me to be a better person and move away from what I have become.

Who I have become? I feel like living in NYC has brought out the worst in me and exacerbated any insecurities and problems that I had before moving here. Since I have come to NYC, I have noticed that I'm a bit more hardened. I'm not as nice as I used to be, meaning that I'm less outgoing and friendly. I let things that random people do and say bother me. Then if my friends do something that bother me, it becomes a huge hurt and bothers me for long periods of time. Additionally, if I feel like I am putting more into a friendship or a relationship than someone else, I get annoyed and wonder if these people truly care about me. I feel like I have become more selfish and self-centered since I have moved here. Finally, I have gotten caught up in the fast-paced life of NYC. Whether it involves fun, work, and dating, my speed of life has picked up. While this can be good in some instances, it is not always good. I have found myself making compromises and doing things that I wouldn't have done before moving here.

These changes have rocked my very core and have made me unhappy and depressed. I'm slowly moving back to old my self and remembering the good, the bad, the happy, the successes, the failures, and everything about who I am and who I wanted to be.

Who did I want to be before I moved to the east coast? I wanted to be a doctor and someone who adds to a community, making the world a better place. I wanted to be someone that people could always count on and someone who is there. I wanted to live a happy, secure, and successful life. I wanted to be a caregiver to my patients, community, friends, family, and boyfriend. I wanted to help others and be as selfless as I could be, not expecting anything in return. I wanted to stay true to my Utah and Mormon heritage. I wanted to be confident and secure in my decisions and not let insecurities or past problems get in the way of my life. I wanted to continue my travels of the country and the world, and connect with nature and people in meaningful ways. I wanted to stay close to my family (and I'm realizing now that I also value being close to them in distance). Most importantly, I wanted to be a father and raise a beautiful family with my husband.

I wanted to be all of these things, and I still do. I just have to remember that this is the person that I want to be. Reminding myself of why I want to be these things and then letting my memories help me stay true to these wants. I feel like I made a U-turn and am heading down the right road to become the person that I want to be.

Goals and Resolutions for 2015

Last year was an interesting year that was full of ups and downs. The first half was mainly up, but the second half was mainly down. But overall, it was a good year and I learned a lot about life, love, the world, and myself. As I look forward to the upcoming year, my thoughts have turned to what I want to get out of life. There is a lot. I have a lot of hopes, dreams, goals, and desires for my future life, but a lot of those goals cannot be achieved within a year. I have to set-up smaller goals to eventually get to my major life goals. This next year, I'm going to work on me--work to achieve happiness and to ready myself for my life goals. Below is a list a of what I would like to accomplish and what habits I would like to gain this next year.

1. Overall sense of happiness and passion for life again... Live meaningful and full of life
2. Go camping or take a trip outside of the city at least once a month
3. Start swimming and competing regularly again
4. Work out a couple of times a week with my best friend
5. Be more open and honest with my friends and family about my struggles, sadness, happiness, gratitude, basically everything
6. Ask for help when I need it
7. Learn to better accept love and let go of others faults
8. Read a book each month
9. Start attending cooking/baking classes (do a 4 classes this year)
10. Start doing more medical work, specifically in primary care
11. Reorganize my life and remove the unnecessary clutter (i.e. physical, mental, emotional)
12. Learn to speak Spanish more fluently
13. Publish a paper by the end of the 2015/2016 school year
14. Let potential lovers do more chasing instead of me doing all the chasing
15. Allow myself to be taken care of more and quitting taking too much care of others

Currently, my major life goals are to become a primary care physician who specializes in diet, get married and have children, never sacrifice my life for my career, move back west (it's my home), explore the world around me, and to make the world a better place. This is what I want in my life and I have to be open in order to recognize what will allow me to achieve these goals. 

Here's to an amazing 2015 ahead of me and all of you!

UPDATE:
I forgot one important goal/resolution. I want use technology and social media less. I'm slowly removing myself from facebook and plan to only get on every now and then and I'm going to remove myself from my phone. I don't want to be a slave to technology and live in the moment/enjoy my life instead of living through others.