One. Big. Excuse.

I often reflect on my life.

I reflect on my choices, decisions, my experiences. I reflect on my conversations and my readings. I reflect through writing, which you then see posted to my social mediums because I figure why not share it, right?

I’ve learned a lot about myself and life through these reflections. I’ve realized how far I’ve come, yet I’ve also realized how far I have to go. And what I love about it most, really, is that no matter how much I reflect, no matter how much I write, I know that I will always have more to learn, more to reflect on, and in turn more reasons to continue to write.

So today as I reflected on some of my choices that have been apparent in the past couple of months as I drove around blasting “Blank Space” (yeah, I know), I realized something.

What started as a realization that I had started to take Reno for granted (previous blog post), turned into something a little bit bigger than that.

Just as Taylor Swift said, “I can read you like a magazine” (again, I know), it hit me. My life as of late has been one big excuse to not live the life that I truly want to live.

One… big… excuse.

That’s a bold statement (or I guess thought, I haven’t started talking to myself…yet).

I don’t want to start a workout plan because I only have 4 weeks until I go home for winter break and I don’t like the gym I have a pass to now. I don’t want to start teaching dance in Reno because I might move in 6 months. I don’t want to join another organization because who knows if I’ll be moving and why would I get more involved. I don’t want to start actually blogging as a job because I have school and other stuff to work on. I don’t want to start choreographing and dancing more because I want to get in shape first (wait, what?).

I don’t want to do all of these things that I clearly actually do want to do. Why? Well, because.

Because excuses are easy. Because excuses don’t let you down. Because excuses are more simple than actually living in the moment.

So what if you might move soon? So what if it isn’t the right time? So what if you’re scared? So what?

I’m tired of waiting for things that I’ve made up in my own head as reasons to wait to live the life I want. I’m tired of not doing things I love because I’m scared of failing. I’m tired of waiting for the weekend, for the summer, for things to be “better.” I’m tired of saying “because.”

Why do we constantly make excuses to stop ourselves from doing what we want to do?

I don’t have that answer, but I do have the solution: don’t.