a list of reasons to just keep trying.

1. because Sandra Bullock just kept trying in Gravity.
2. because even if you don't succeed, you will have accomplished things that felt impossible.
3. because you really can do anything you put your mind to.
4. because what else are you going to fill your days up with? nothing? don't be wasteful of life.
5. because life is about the struggle. and the rewards from the struggle.
6. because others have worked so hard to put you in the place you are now.
7. because you want to be part of something that is bigger than yourself.
8. because you want to go into work each day, knowing you could positively impact a life.
9. because you want to give your kids all of the advantages & opportunities you had growing up.
10. because it's worth it.
11. because one day you'll grab coffee through the starbucks line on the way to your office.
12. because one day you'll have a place to wear your pink polo oxford & navy & white polka-dotted pencil skirt.
13. because one day you'll have patients, & a schedule, & a routine.
14. because one day you'll be able to buy your husband lavish gifts to repay him for how he has unwaveringly supported you.
15. because whyyyyy notttt, take a crazy chance? [thanks, hilary duff].
16. just because.

thought(s) on thursday.

There is great, great joy in rising early, which is very easily forgotten between dreams & the snooze button.

thoughts on monday.

Since I last wrote, nothing has been particularly satisfyingly productive in my life. Does that make sense? Well, perhaps I'll try to explain: I get on these kicks of overwhelmingly satisfying productivity. Even if the items I'm completing on my to-do list are extremely mundane, & even if the to-do list isn't miles upon miles long... I just get this feeling of euphoria as I carry out my day. Here is a great example of one of those types of days.

But, like I said: I haven't been feeling that feeling lately. And oh, how I miss it. I miss zipping around, doing this & that, schlicing it off my to-do list with a highlighter... Yes. I miss that. 

The truth is: I've been in a BIG rut. There, I said it. I know it's one of the most overused phrases or ideas or whatever, but sometimes saying that you're "in a rut" is the only way to express what's happening when you stop wanting to rise early, when you feel exhausted by eight p.m., & you aren't taking joy in little day-to-day items. I've been in a rut. 

My to-do lists have weighed on me... have gone un-schliced. They have mocked me days later, when I gaze upon them & find them achingly bare. Starkly un-highlighted. And yet, I continued making the lists. I continued piling on the items, knowing I wasn't going to complete them. And I continued in this vicious cycle for days... weeks. 

Then, this morning, as I was sitting outside of my Anatomy & Physiology classroom, I knew what I needed to do, as if the answer had been there all along [because it had]. Make a different type of to-do list. Re-arrange my tasks. Look at my previously-daunting list in a slightly different light. I think I'm surprised every time at how different something feels from a slightly adjusted vantage point.

So, I'm going to try to remember this time. I'm going to try to remember, that when my to-do lists feel un-doable, or my tasks feel like lead weighing down my steps... I'll just come at them from a different angle. I'll see them differently. I'll feel them differently. And I'll most certainly carry them out differently. 

Better.