25 Year Audit

I turn 25 today! Wow... The folks weren't kidding when they said that time starts to pass by quicker as you get older. I do not feel as old as I am. This morning when I woke up, Tenille asked me if I felt 25. I replied, "Nope, I feel 21!" And maybe even younger than that. Not because of some delusional sense of invincibility, and not because I feel I am immature. I simply feel younger because time has simply been going by so fast.

So... 25 years... halfway to 50. A quarter of a century. Blah blah blah, yeah I get it, I'm getting older.

So every 5 years or so I tend to do an audit of my life. At 15, I looked at me and wrote a letter to myself as part of a high school assignment, basically writing to my 25-year-old self in the future. I mainly wrote of my personal goals that I expected my 10-year-older self to accomplish by that (or This, I guess) time. A few of the main things I recall that I expected were the following:

• Serve a full time mission for my church.
• Be married
• Have two kids
• Graduated from BYU
  

Well, if I could write back to my 15-year self pen pal, who at the time was very naive and quite cocky, I would probably write something like ":-) Haha, LOL U R funny :-P" (which my teen self would have been totally confused by). Okay, for real now. If I could write back to my 10-year-younger self today, I would have told me to be more engaged in school, to prepare for the crazy times that were to come, and to try harder to find out who I am/was. I would tell me about not taking himself to seriously, about how wonderful married life is, and how all things happen on God's time, THEN ours. I'd tell me to get a job, and to save more for the future (I'm selfish, I know! haha)

Another interesting thought comes from 5 years ago today, when I turned 20. I was serving as an LDS missionary in a little Dominican town called Tamboril, and when I woke up the temperature was 80+ degrees already, and of course, humid. I had merely slept with a sheet, no blanket, in shorts and a T-shirt. I remember laying there with my eyes open, thinking "I am no longer a teenager. I am 20 now. I should look forward to the future I soon will have to weild on my own." I had been on my mission for nearly a year at the time, and so it was also a focal point for my 2 year service. I had been a feisty one in the beginning, but had begun to see that people are more than just baptismal numbers. I began to realize on that 16th day of September in 2005 that the only sould I could truly convert and bring to Christ was ultimately, mine. I realized that everyone comes from different walks of life, and that their journey towards happiness would likely vary from my own, and that's okay. In time, I would come slower to judge, and quicker to forgive (something I still work at to this day).

As I sit here at another 5 year mark, auditing where I am currently at, I would only change the fact that I have not yet graduated from college. There is so much I lack from not having delved deeper into my collegiate studies. And yet, I have been so blessed thus far, especially the last 5 years. I have the most beautiful wife in the world, a baby boy soon to arrive in the fall (our first, sorry Teen-Brandon), and a warm and sturdy home amidst a plethora of great friends and neighbors. I have a steady job that has provided both the means of life and the opportunity for growth, having now been at Zrii for nearly 3 years now. I have been home from my mission for nearly 4 years now, and I revert back to the things I learned there, often.

All in all, as I look back to my 15-year and 20-year old selves, I think I have done pretty well for myself in some areas, and I have plenty of room for growth. I don't think this is arrogant or prideful, but merely practical and fair. I hope that I am not the only one who does a self audit of their life. It is not a complicated process, but it can be difficult to be honest with yourself; to truly separate your needs from your wants. At the end of the day, the secret is knowing that only you can truly audit your own life, and in the same breath, only you can decide where you go from there.

Many happy returns!