2011: guts

i overthink everything. if it's simple, i'll find a way to complicate it. i'm very familiar with mr. analysis paralysis. he visits me all. the. time. especially in our world of 102938748347 choices. i love you internets, but i don't when you give me too many choices.

architecture school, especially the type i go to, aggravates this problem for people like me. what am i like? well, an instructor put it nicely when he said that i'm probably the most conscientious person at my school. meaning i'm super anal, detail-oriented, punctual, and worried about getting things right (even in a place where there often is no right, everyone definition of right differs, and wrong is often actually right...so depraved, i know ;) ).

do i make better decisions because of this? maybe in the everyday. i'm usually very happy with purchases i make, for example. but in everything else? probably not. i just stress more, stew more, and waste more time than the average person. so not worth it.

in the end, you never know how something will turn out until you decide, commit, do it. life never ends up the way i expect anyway, so it's all about just dealing with any and all consequences, expected or not, as they come.

so in 2011, guts.

_trust my guts. instinct. judgment. whatever you like to call it. and act on what they tell me.

_listen to my conscience. and obey. so help me God.

_listen to what moves me. even if it's trite or silly or outrageous. and make note of it. not necessarily analyze right away, but tuck it away for later reflection, and allow for it to simply be in my mind.

_have the guts to put it out there. this is so hard in any creative endeavor, because no matter how good a job you do at removing yourself from the work, you always feel like you're putting part of yourself out there for the world to pick apart. and you feel so vulnerable and naked. you'd think by now i have a really thick skin after an undergrad design degree and almost three years of arch school, but i seem to be regressing. i wasn't afraid of just putting anything out there/up on the wall for critique when i started grad school, but i've gotten more and more scared. which doesn't help me learn or grow at all.

_be decisive! be be decisive! most decisions will have both good and bad consequences anyway, so i'll trust my God-given judgment and life experience to guide me rather than hours and hours of analysis in my head, on paper, in conversation with anyone who'll listen, etc.

_man up and own the consequences. really own all of it.

_when the choice isn't so hot, be kind to myself. yeah, i feel old, but i'm really not that old and don't have *that* much life experience. i'll learn eventually, and this will teach me. when i make what turns out to be an awesome choice, give the guts some credit.

i hope my gutsiness is quite so...pink.

[image from last fall's thesis presentations]

this guy got REALLY close to me somewhere up the coast.

guts.

but his guts (and experience) probably told him i'd feed him.

wrong.

but at least i had no intention of hurting him, either.

right, there.

dressed up lobster guts!

(well, flesh, i guess. whatever, i dug it out from the shell.)

i know it'll be scary. hopefully it'll be just as rewarding as it is scary.