I had lofty plans for yesterday. It was my first New Year\u2019s in Detroit. I was going to brunch, spend a day at the DIA, have dinner with friends and end at Campus Martius to see the \u201cD\u201d drop, a perfectly planned Detroit day.<\/p>\n
I did not one of those things. Besides a small Whole Foods run and a very unsuccessful Uber attempt, I spent most of the day alone in my apartment. And it was exactly what I needed.<\/p>\n
Between learning the ropes at a new job, exploring everything happening in the city and wanting to make the most of my Challenge experience, I haven\u2019t given myself any time to just be, to sit or stay in one place. I feel like I have been constantly running. Today, I finally decided to force myself to stop.<\/p>\n
It was tough, I had urges to make new plans or follow through with the ones I had thought up for the day. I also had moments of feeling like I was wasting a monumental once in a lifetime opportunity – after all how many New Years\u2019 will I spend in the \u201cD.\u201d By nighttime, I even decided to just give in and go downtown, but (perhaps in some weird cosmic way) was thwarted by an Uber mishap.<\/p>\n
Throughout the day, I kept thinking of how unnatural it felt to not be out and about or doing something. I have gotten so used to going from one thing to another that not having a plan feels as if time is being wasted. And when you are in a year long program, there is no time to waste.<\/p>\n
But what I\u2019ve learned, albeit with a lot of internal resistance, is that there will always be new experiences, inspiring speakers, friends I want to catch up with. There will always be additional things to do at work, side projects to take on, memories to create. It’s up to me to find a way to strike a balance, which also means it’s on me to learn how to cut things out. A family friend recently said to me, \u201cWherever there is a canvas you can paint. But don\u2019t let it overwhelm you.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the end of the day, there probably wasn\u2019t a more fitting way to ring in 2016 for me. In this new year, my goal is to be more mindful of where and how I am spending my time. When I am constantly exposed to so much, I can\u2019t help but want to absorb it all. But there are only so many hours in the day, and I only have so much paint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had lofty plans for yesterday. It was my first New Year\u2019s in Detroit. I was going to brunch, spend a day at the DIA, have dinner with friends and end at Campus Martius to see the \u201cD\u201d drop, a perfectly planned Detroit day. I did not one of those things. Besides a small Whole […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":154,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-livedetroit","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/154"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}