I've completed a year on YLF today. I'm finally a Veteran....and it's sent me down memory lane.

Around this time last year, I was going through a tough time personally. I had to make some hard choices regarding my career, and I was made to see that my personality had some serious flaws.

Let me put this into simpler words. My content writing career (I write for magazines, blogs & journals) was seeing some remarkable changes. The world of the Internet was becoming more *visual*.....people wanted to *see* things, not *read* through long content. While I was regularly churning out 10,000 words a day (I used to be paid per word), I knew that I would either have to start writing about stuff I didn't like and care for, or accept the fact that I will have to do lesser work. And that meant lesser money every month. Or maybe, change my career. This last part still scares me though it shouldn't. I actually went to school to become a trained architect and furniture designer, so changing my career is not a 'new' or 'untried' idea. I just simply didn't want to do it. Yet.

On a personal front, my husband had pointed out a serious personality flaw in me. It worked for me like a WAKE UP call. He told me that I *think* I always know what I want and am very good at making goals & achieving them, but I actually suck at enjoying accomplishments. I had no idea what it was to just RELAX, or to LIVE IN THE MOMENT. I perpetually lived in the Future - tirelessly planning and dreaming. He reminded me that when we were driving home in our (then) new car, I was planning what car to buy next and how much I will need to work & save to make that happen. When we were on a flight back home from an amazing albeit expensive vacation, I was planning our next travel plans. I never ever enjoyed what was happening in the HERE & NOW, I was always worried about the "What Next?"

This point shook my entire life. The entire foundation of Who Am I? I actually had no idea. Why do I plan & dream so much when I'm not in-the-present when it's actually happening?

I vowed to change. To slow down. To learn the 'art of relaxing', not just keep thinking tirelessly. During this time, I stared a blog.

https://thediaryofaserialdreamer.wordpress.com

If you do make the time to go through it, you'll notice that the mind behind the words is troubled & lost. Writing this helped me a lot. Reading a lot also helped me a lot. It taught me to quite my mind, to relax and not be doing 'something' every single waking moment of my life. It took me a whole year to not feel guilty if I wasn't working or doing household chores ir exercising. To be able to just sit with a cup of tea and gaze out the window....doing nothing.

And this brings me to today. Today I still write, but I do very selective projects and I finish work in 3-4 hours. I make very less money compared to earlier, but I'm at peace with that. I finish my work, and then I train my mind to "not over think" and just enjoy my PRESENT. Everyday. I spend a lot of time here on YLF, I play a lot with the dogs, I garden, I cook, I still read ALOT. I go for long walks where I listen to music. Basically - I'm spending a lot of time reconnecting with myself, and I'm slowly finding out that I may not be the person I thought I was.

But I have a problem again. Now, I'm so good at living-in-the-present, I am afraid to commit to anything in the future. I keep fearing I'll relapse. I've become a completely changed person who is absolutely content with the HERE & NOW.....and now anything in the future scares me. I am trying to plan our vacation to Thailand in August, but I'm not able to commit to anything. The dates, the location, the budget - anything!

Few months back my husband was anxious to buy a new car (the very one I was planning on the last time we bought a car) and I was telling him "It's too early! Our car is less than 2 years old! We haven't even traveled much in it yet". And he reminded me that we had changed our 2 previous cars in less than 2 years too, and I never mentioned this before! He did buy the car, but I was skeptical until the end.

Can a person change this drastically in a course of a year? What happened to that very ambitious girl who always had 1000 things on her wish-list on any given day? I thought I always had a 'plan' for everything....but suddenly here I am, and I have no plans at all. About anything. No plans on how to change my career or what to change it to, no plans to learn something new, no plans to try anything different.

Like I said above, I'm finding out that I may not be the person I though I was. And that scares me. I'm not 100% sure if this is good or bad.....being calmer, more relaxed, less driven. But it feels 'natural' to me right now.

Actually, I don't really have a question for you. I just wanted to write this down. But if you have any inputs/thoughts or advise, I'd love to hear it.

Thanks for reading this novel. Sorry it's so freaking long.