"What is one word that describes your intention for the next 5 years?"
A friend of mine asked this via Instagram, first to me when I posted a picture on my story asking for people to ask me questions or tell me something at the end of 2019 (to which only three friends actually replied…), and then on her own Instagram story asking her followers. I was delighted by this question, and during the last days of 2019 while I was in Cebu, I mulled it over.
Eventually, I came up with the word, and it serves as the title to this blog entry.
Why imagining? As opposed to, say, something like imagine or imagination? (For one thing, I did not want to do “imagine” because I am not a huge fan of the famous song that has that name, and I also wanted to be more original.)
I settled upon imagining for various reasons. The gerund (-ing) implies a certain activeness, as opposed to passiveness. It’s a state of being–I want to be imagining the things I could create, the ways the world could be better, and a myriad of other things I could eventually translate into action. Or not! What I liked about imagining rather than something more concrete like creating is that it doesn’t require anything other than my mind, nor does it carry the expectation of an output. Imagining is, of course, the first step toward creating, which is also something I fully intend to do more of. I just see imagining as something more all-encompassing and personal, which is what I wanted my word to be.
At this point in my life, I will need to be doing a lot of imagining. Some things recently haven’t turned out the way I hoped, which happens to everyone, and I will need to imagine new ways of how my life will be. Even though I've felt discouraged, this should be more exciting than depressing, really, and I’ll explain the vagueness in a later entry once things settle a bit more.
Along with needing to, I also want to be doing more imagining. Some of my goals for the next five years involve doing more creative work, especially in music, visual arts, and writing. For example, it’s been almost nine years since I first took up the ukulele, yet I haven’t written a single original song! I always wrote myself off as somebody who could only do covers or at least lyrical translations of songs, but it wouldn’t hurt to try and write something for once. (I think I tried to get into it during my semester in Rwanda when I had very limited wifi and spent a lot of time at home, but then other things happened.) As for visual arts, I want to try and be one of those people who doesn’t need a reason to draw something and to fill up my journals with more art. My current daily journal is blocks of text on unlined pages, which looks really nice because my handwriting is nice, but I should really doodle more. Luckily, I have a new daily journal which I will start using soon once I run out of space in my current one. And finally, I want to write a piece of fiction. Hopefully a novel, just for fun and to write purely for my enjoyment rather than for an academic requirement. If I publish it one day, then that’s great, but I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself!
And there you have it–my word that describes my intention for the next five years (and beyond). Part of this entry was written into my notebook somewhere over the sea on the flight from Manila to Tokyo in January, and the rest of it was finished on Evernote on the flight from Atlanta to Guatemala City. Imagining what lies ahead in my 34th country is getting me super excited, so it’s time to close my laptop and prepare for arrival!
A friend of mine asked this via Instagram, first to me when I posted a picture on my story asking for people to ask me questions or tell me something at the end of 2019 (to which only three friends actually replied…), and then on her own Instagram story asking her followers. I was delighted by this question, and during the last days of 2019 while I was in Cebu, I mulled it over.
Eventually, I came up with the word, and it serves as the title to this blog entry.
Why imagining? As opposed to, say, something like imagine or imagination? (For one thing, I did not want to do “imagine” because I am not a huge fan of the famous song that has that name, and I also wanted to be more original.)
I settled upon imagining for various reasons. The gerund (-ing) implies a certain activeness, as opposed to passiveness. It’s a state of being–I want to be imagining the things I could create, the ways the world could be better, and a myriad of other things I could eventually translate into action. Or not! What I liked about imagining rather than something more concrete like creating is that it doesn’t require anything other than my mind, nor does it carry the expectation of an output. Imagining is, of course, the first step toward creating, which is also something I fully intend to do more of. I just see imagining as something more all-encompassing and personal, which is what I wanted my word to be.
At this point in my life, I will need to be doing a lot of imagining. Some things recently haven’t turned out the way I hoped, which happens to everyone, and I will need to imagine new ways of how my life will be. Even though I've felt discouraged, this should be more exciting than depressing, really, and I’ll explain the vagueness in a later entry once things settle a bit more.
Along with needing to, I also want to be doing more imagining. Some of my goals for the next five years involve doing more creative work, especially in music, visual arts, and writing. For example, it’s been almost nine years since I first took up the ukulele, yet I haven’t written a single original song! I always wrote myself off as somebody who could only do covers or at least lyrical translations of songs, but it wouldn’t hurt to try and write something for once. (I think I tried to get into it during my semester in Rwanda when I had very limited wifi and spent a lot of time at home, but then other things happened.) As for visual arts, I want to try and be one of those people who doesn’t need a reason to draw something and to fill up my journals with more art. My current daily journal is blocks of text on unlined pages, which looks really nice because my handwriting is nice, but I should really doodle more. Luckily, I have a new daily journal which I will start using soon once I run out of space in my current one. And finally, I want to write a piece of fiction. Hopefully a novel, just for fun and to write purely for my enjoyment rather than for an academic requirement. If I publish it one day, then that’s great, but I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself!
And there you have it–my word that describes my intention for the next five years (and beyond). Part of this entry was written into my notebook somewhere over the sea on the flight from Manila to Tokyo in January, and the rest of it was finished on Evernote on the flight from Atlanta to Guatemala City. Imagining what lies ahead in my 34th country is getting me super excited, so it’s time to close my laptop and prepare for arrival!
P.S. Here was my friend's response to my response to her question...
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