A New Year, A Wider View

With 2026 approaching, those wishes feel a little closer to home.  I’ve spent the past few months thinking about what’s ahead, and what’s already behind me.  For me, this year is a big one.  It feels like a marker on the trail; a milestone.  By the end of it, I’ll turn 50, and whether that number feels big or small depends entirely on the day you ask me. 

There’s something clarifying about numbers, even when they’re imperfect.  If I’m generous with assumptions and round things off, I can tell myself that roughly two-thirds of my life may already be written. That sentence alone feels strange to say out loud.  I’m not interested in arguing timelines or tempting fate with hypotheticals and my purpose is not to emphasize urgency, but more to deepen awareness.  All I know with certainty, is that none of us are guaranteed tomorrow.  This is something I’ve written about many times before and that truth has a way of sharpening the present moment.  If tomorrow isn’t promised, then today deserves our full attention, no matter how we choose to live it. 

With that perspective in mind, I’ve been revisiting a list I started a few years ago: 50 things to do before I’m 50. What surprises me most isn’t what’s still on the list, it’s how much has already been crossed off.  The idea came from a good friend who documented her own list publicly, sharing each small victory as it happened.  Thank you, Trina.  I loved the spirit of it.  Not performative.  Intentional.  So, I made my own list. 

Some items were simple.  Some were wildly optimistic.  But I’ve always believed there’s value in setting the bar high and seeing what happens.  Somewhere along the way, I stopped being disappointed by the things I didn’t achieve.  The attempt began to matter more than the outcome.  Effort became its own quiet win.  You try, you learn, you move forward.  Sometimes you succeed. Sometimes you don’t.  Either way, life keeps unfolding.  Like the old cliché says,

“You win some, You lose some.” 

As I look back, it’s often the smaller, more attainable goals that have found their way into reality, while the bigger ones still sit there patiently waiting to be crossed off, watchful, and intimidating me.  They stare back at me like reminders of unfinished conversations.  Like the ghost of Christmas present and Christmas Future in one.  In 2026, I want to give those bigger ideas some space.  Not necessarily to conquer them, but to engage with them.  To try.  To see what they might become.  Often, finishing something on the list mattered less for what it was and far more for who I became while working toward it.  That realization alone is reason enough to try. To give ideas space.  To give goals time.  You never really know what will come of something until you step into it. 

What I do know is this: if you don’t try, if you never attempt, if you leave something sitting there as nothing more than a passing thought, then nothing changes.  Nothing will happen.  One day you’ll wake up, look back, and feel the weight of those two small words: what if.  And to me, that thought is heavier than any Greek tragedy I ever studied in theater school. 

What if… 
What if… 
Ugh. What if. 

Who really cares whether you finished the thing or not?  Usually, it’s the what-if-ers who care the most.  The ones who never stepped forward themselves.  They watch from a safe distance, quietly relieved when someone else doesn’t succeed, because it confirms their own decision not to try. See? That’s why I didn’t do it. 

This is why I’ve always loved Garth Brook’s song “Standing Outside the Fire”. It captures this philosophy perfectly.  I have stood on both sides, and always left disappointed when I was on the outside, looking in, playing it safe. Unfortunately, those that stand on the outside miss the point entirely. 

The real reward lives when you’re in the fire.  The in-between.  In the moments of effort.  In the discomfort.  In the small shifts that happen while you’re reaching for something uncertain.  Not finishing doesn’t really matter, it does not equal failure.  More often, it equals growth.  It equals perspective.  It equals a story worth telling. 

And it’s those things that I hope the year leaves me with.  The stories, the growth, the way your outlook changes.  Those are achievements far greater than anything written on a list.  I want memories that feel earned. Moments that surprised me.  And maybe, when I look back a year from now, I’ll be able to smile and say, without hesitation: this is my life, and I showed up for it. 

“Failure does not scare me nearly as much as regret. “What if” is heavier than hard work.”

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