Seize the moments of 2025
Here we are again at the dawn of a new year, given another opportunity to achieve our divine assignments on earth.
As I grow in maturity and in, um, age – I will turn 55 this year - I’ve learned some valuable lessons of life. First and foremost, you can’t change people, you can only control how you respond to them. Number two, procrastination is essentially laziness. And I’m not lazy. And No. 3, carpe diem – seize the moment.
No. 1:
This has been a challenging year for me and my family as we have confronted issues that have tested our resolve as a family unit. I’ve also had to overcome some relationship issues that landed me on the figurative couch of a therapist.
Yes, for the first time in my life, I spent some quality time with a therapist for the first six months of 2024. I was hoping she would tell me what to do. Not so. Instead, she posed the right questions, that led me to dig deeper into my childhood, bringing to surface insecurities that shaped my life and choices today. Whew, child! Talk about starting with the man in the mirror.
I journaled. I cried. I took back control of my emotions. The work continues.
She did advise, however, that I date myself last summer. So, I did. I took myself to the movies. I attended street festivals solo. I was a party of one at restaurants. I went to one favorite spot where they sat me at the same table each time. This must be the designated single table; I thought to myself.
Nonetheless, I enter this year an emotionally healthier version of myself. I recognize that I have to accept people as they are and where they are in their lives – forgoing potential and promise and embracing – or rejecting – what is.
If this concept keeps me single yet happy, I can live with that. But I prefer existing in a mutually loving relationship with someone who accepts me for my corny, witty, sociable, kindhearted, optimistic, adventurous, spiritual self (shameless plug).
No 2:
This year, I also achieved something that I had been putting off for six years: obtaining my master’s degree. Earning a graduate degree was not on my radar until I started working at Livingstone College in 2017. My department lead at that time, Dr. State Alexander, advised that if I were to elevate in higher education, I needed an advanced degree.
At first, I resisted the notion. If I were a professor or faculty member, yes, I see the need. But I’m in communications. As long as I know how to write a press release, conjugate verbs and chummy up with the media, I’m good. Not so.
In July 2023, I discovered an accelerated online program at Full Sail University. I wasn’t one month into the program when I got a job offer from my alma mater, Winston-Salem State University. In the beginning, I was commuting two hours one way to work, coming home and doing my lessons, all while taking care of my elderly mother.
Then I decided to move to Winston-Salem, settling in an apartment that is only a five-minute drive to work. What I saved in gas is now going towards rent – and then some.
My new routine was going to work by day and studying and doing my lessons by night and on the weekends. For an entire year, I experienced FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). I had to say, no, to tempting invitations that dangled in front of me like a carrot.
But it all paid off. I graduated with a perfect 4.0 GPA and was valedictorian of my class. This was a redeeming moment for me. When I graduated with my Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication and Spanish from WSSU, I missed being an honor graduate by a few points because of El Espanol. I allowed my professor to talk me into double majoring because by now, as he prophesied, Spanish would be the official second language of America. This would be the perfect place to insert “Not so,” but truth to told, the United States does not have an official language, let alone an official second language, on the federal level, though English is our primary language. (Go ahead, fact check it.)
My family and close friends joined me to celebrate my graduation during a week's stay in Florida. I am proud and grateful for this accomplishment. Now, let’s just hope Dr. Alexander was right and this degree will pay off for me because repayment of those student loans starts this month.
No 2 and 3:
Life is fleeting. Not to put a damper on my optimism, but I personally know a couple of people who received cancer diagnoses last year and were gone to heaven within three months.
So, no matter what you aspire to do this year. No matter what your goals or resolutions are. GET STARTED! Dreams don’t work unless you do. A month from now, we can either have a month of progress or a month of excuses.
My friends and I have decided to be each other’s accountability partners. This means, we had to be vulnerable and share with each other those things that we want to accomplish and those bad habits we want to cast away. With God at the center of our lives and with conviction as our compass, we are committing to not allow age to define us. Just because we are aging gracefully doesn’t mean we have to always act our age – whatever that means.
We will seize the moments because who knows how much longer before the trumpet sounds.
Some people feel like they have to wait on the right time, the right person, the right finances, the right weather, the right right to get started. Not so.
To remind my circle of friends of our pledge, I purchased them drink coasters with these words: “That’s a horrible idea. What time?”
How about now!
