There’s enough life to go around and certainly enough to be lived.

Welcome to Jöön’s blank canvas where I’ll round up all the colors I’d like to use throughout the month and then spend the rest of it coloring. Whether the art comes out beautiful or ends up a vomit of mess, the greatest win I will have achieved is taking this blank canvas by its horns and running with it instead of running away.

And to translate that gibberish to English, welcome to Jöön’s overview, briefing, checklist if you will; of things I want to do, plan to do, or need to do.

The purpose of this briefing is to essentially allow myself some time to organize my life and round up the momentum it’s going to take to end this month on top; not to mention the confidence it’ll bring as it gives me a sense of direction and the accountability it’ll hold me to as I ensure these things get done.

Every day I’m growing, learning, living, and the thing I’m proud of the most is that more often than not now, every day I’m having fun.

And I want to keep that alive, so without further ado, let’s begin.

Introducing my colors:

Pink, aka The No-Spend Challenge
My WHY: I want to go back to school, I don’t qualify for financial aid which means I have to pay my own way, and none of that matters; I want to go back to school.

Blue, aka Daily Routine
My WHY: I want something sturdy, something reliable, something consistent. Something I don’t have to question, something that just happens without too much thought; I want a routine.

Orange, aka Creative Expression and Hobbies
My WHY: I have so many ideas in my head that I just want to get out whether its on a page or a canvas; a vlog or podcast — doesnt matter, I want to see what it looks like.

and of course,

Green — Jazzercise.

I don’t actually jazzercise, but you can’t tell me there was a better way to finish off my crayon box. Well, unless of course you can, in which case I’ll start over; what I meant to say was green means dance.

Every part of me,
says dance.

My WHY? Because the simple truth is, I love to dance. I stopped dancing for a long time because I was embarrassed everytime I danced off step but now none of that matters; I want to dance.

Emphasis on want, want, want.

And I mean it when I say I’m going to color my way through Jöön, emphasis on color. I don’t have a “design” in mind, but I do have a box of crayons and I’m completely content with not knowing where that’ll take me.

In the past, all I ever wanted to paint was a portrait of success. I never wanted to paint unless I knew it was going to be good. I was afraid of the mess; afraid of other people seeing the mess, and especially afraid of them judging me for it. But in all honesty, now I’m just happy the mess is there and I cannot tell you how much of a relief that is.

To know that, somehow, my curiosity has surpassed my need for societal approval.

I’ve decided I don’t need success to be happy or better yet, that my version of it doesn’t need to match that of his or hers. It’s empowering, like the handcuffs are off.

That’s not to say I’m immune to disappointing others, that it wouldn’t phase me if I let someone down — of course it would. However, slowly I’m learning to separate and discern the authority a person has on my life at any given time and understanding the extent of that authority.

Some people will run right over you if you let them, and it took me a long time to finally understand what that meant. Like, I understood the surface idea, that they’ll take advantage, but it went far deeper than I could have ever realized. There was more depth, more meaning, and all it took was time to make me say enough is enough.

And a lot of that have to do with myself.
I ran myself over.

I forced myself to be things I couldn’t, gave myself deadlines I couldn’t meet, and anytime that happened, I’d sit in sorrow, grieving all the time I’ve wasted and the time I’ll never get back. I was never good enough and that gave me a lot of shame; it was only by the grace of God that I was able to overcome it because the hole I dug for myself was so deep, I would have never conjured up the strength to climb out of it on my own.

I was so hung up on society’s expectations of me that I never stopped to ask what mine were. As I get older, I’m starting to understand that it’s not someone else’s job to live my life for me; that responsibility’s mine and mine alone. And after being saved by Christ, it’s my will to follow Him, as a means to give thanks for the depression He brought me out of.

I was my own Egypt.

Therefore, success to me is disorganized chaos where I’m smack dab at the center. And maybe that’s why the colors matter so much to me.

For a long time, I wasn’t interested in coloring unless I knew exactly what the finished picture would look like. I wanted guarantees. I wanted assurance people would love it. I wanted to ensure they’d be proud because that was the only proof that the effort would be worth it.

If there were no people, there were no crayons.

But somewhere along the way, I became less interested in the finished picture and more interested in the act of coloring itself.

So now there’s crayons whether or not there’s people.

What about you? What’s in your crayon box?

Think about it.

Cheers,
B.