I purposefully delayed this blog until after New Years Day, if only to ensure that I actually took a moment to breathe, think, and reflect on the season just passed. However, what I ended up doing was watching the Star Wars prequel trilogy, sleeping until the afternoon, and reading half of Don Miller’s latest book ‘A Million Miles in a Thousand years’. Somehow, as things always seem to be, it was appropriate that this book was opened at this time as opposed to the months that preceded it. Things happen at the right time; God ensures it.

Being a new year, I am invariably filled with optimism that I have the ability to create a changed me; more handsome, witty, intelligent, and with less inclination to flatuency. I believe that I can create this miracle by assigning myself a few rules and guidelines for the coming year, and adhering to them with ease, the world will soon see the Gary James Borrows I imagine as I should truly be. We call these rules ‘resolutions’.

What we tend to forget is that we have trod this path before, and fallen at early hurdles. In the previous few days I have found blogs written by myself in the previous two years talking of my goals and my inevitable successes in them, only for them to be discarded through distraction and failure. 2007 looked something like this:

  • Finger nail biting has to stop
  • Get organised
  • Healthier diet
  • Pass my drivers test ASAP
  • Not to waste money
  • Take risks which mean something

I can stand and say I made concerted efforts for all of these, though none of them ever evolved into the fullness of which I envisioned them. I stopped biting my nails for a month, I applied for my theory test but failed by a single mark, I acted off of romantic impulses but never followed it up with something serious. Ultimately, I failed.

2008 is lost in the archives somewhere, so in 2009 I decided to go for a more abstract approach. I declared it ‘The Year Gary Does Stuff’, and to be fair, I made a pretty good shot at it, though it was in ways I didn’t expect. I performed in musical theatre, at wedding anniversaries, and on stage to thousands of emo’s at the HUB Festival, I worked at three residential camps in 4 weeks, with my birthday sandwiched in between. Ultimately, my 101/1001 list fell by the wayside, but I grew a lot, I changed, I challenged people, comforted friends, and came out into 2010 more resolute and confident for the future.

The problem with my confidence is that it is, as ever, a short term vision that lacks the wisdom for completion. The big thing I have reflected on in the past two days is that I am not entering a purely new year, but a new decade. I can easily ask myself what have I achieved, done that is noteworthy, or even memorable from the last 10 years. Don Miller describes it aptly:

I tried to remember more and made a list, and it pretty much amounted to the times I won at something, the times I lost at something, childhood dental appointments, the first time I saw a girl with her shirt off, and large storms.

I think back to 2005, probably the most eventful and memory-filled year of my life, and so many incidents have slipped through my fingers. Last night, I racked my brain and was amazed to see the things that came to me; all-night phone conversations, trips to places, being naughty, being nice, kisses, cuddles, fights, heartbreak, and tears. I don’t remember what I got for Christmas, I don’t remember much of school, but I remember where I was when we won it 5 times. I would question at times, if I didn’t sit and try and remember, whether these memories happened at all. The only proof is hidden away, a box, containing all the evidence; e-mails, letters, photographs, cards, a slightly crushed vanilla coke can, some tissue, a pen in the shape of a baseball bat, and a small blue notebook, the pages still carrying the smell of perfume.

Life, purposeful or  not, was experienced in the last decade. It saw me transform from a small geeky boy, to a nu-breed, to a romantic, to a cynic. I began it a child, I ended it a man. I was born-again. I was hurt, and I was healed. I encountered God and saw what happens when He isn’t there. I fell in love three times. I fell out of it twice.

So what does the next decade hold? In the next 3,652 days, I will spend somewhere in the region of 1.5 – 2 years of it asleep. With the remaining 8 – 8.5 years I will be forced to make the decisions which will ultimately set the course of my life and the lives of those closest to me. Play my cards right, and I could be the typical guy; married, children, second hand saloon car, and a house with a mortgage I can’t afford to pay. Jealous at my next door neighbour’s latest business success, I spend my evenings drinking beer, shouting at my under performing sports team on the television, and wondering where all my potential slipped away to. I’ll blame my failures on those nearest and dearest, as if my choice to be with them ultimately stopped me fulfilling a dream I was unwilling to put my heart and soul into achieving, And so life goes on, always unsatisfied, hoping my children outperform me into a happiness I know nothing of.

Something in me rallies against this destiny, forces me to act in a way that will accomplish the dreams in my heart. That’s not say the things above aren’t great. I look forward to having a family, I really do, but I know that there are things in my life to be done first. It’s like teaching; Anna sat down with me last week, and told me that I shouldn’t disregard teaching as a career, keep my heart open to it. Part of me knows that one day, I will be in a position where I spend my days working with children, and truly love it, but right now I resist it, because there is a life I must experience before I can teach the lessons of it to children. I need to know the world to teach it, and have seen it to know it.

So I ask myself, what are the dreams in my heart? A few days before new year, I sat down with a group of friends, and we asked each other what are dreams are. I was surprised to find myself with so much in my head, but not a lot to say. I got trapped with a short term decision, and a vague romantic idea of songwriting. The following days have seen me ponder what a big dream in me looks like. I saw myself on tour, playing and singing to people, saw me recording and releasing an album. These are the dreams in my heart. Massive, unrealistic dreams. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about an MTV Cribs style dream here, a dream of fame and wealth that traps the hearts and minds of the young, but the dream that all the time, money, and effort that has been poured into creating this musician would not simply fade like snow melting away, but would see me in some way fulfil a potential that has existed since a child. That I would surpass my parents, not in a way that sees me more financially secure than them, but that I would have the dreams become a reality. Then set my children the standard of going further than I.

Don Miller talks about the problems of goals and resolutions in his latest book, which is why I was fortunate to read it now. The book details the dual-narrative of him editing his book ‘Blue Like Jazz’ into a screenplay, all the while coming to terms with his own struggles with a ‘boring’ life. He begins to realise that real life is comparative to a story, and we have the ability to create our own story’s. He describes a story as ‘a character who wants something and  is willing to overcome a conflict to get it’. This may seem like our own current existence, but Miller describes a key ingredient that is present in narrative but missing from life; he calls it an inciting incident.

‘Characters’, Miller explains, ‘don’t want to change… Characters don’t change without being forced to change.’ Our motivation to change has to be more than the dream, it has to be something that will force us to move into. What Miller says is that, in fiction, these changes are forced upon the character. In real life, which is slower and seemingly more random than the movies, we have the ability to create the inciting incident ourselves. An example is thus: Want to get healthy? Agree to run a marathon with somebody, then you have to train, otherwise you’ll let other people and yourself down.

I look at my own dreams, big and small, and I understand it. I thrive on the pressure, my best work is done at the last minute, when it counts towards me degree or for somebody else. If it is purely a desire then it falls by the wayside, it needs a consequence and an exterior driving factor. I look at my list of 101/1001, and wonder why I ever thought I’d get them done. The only way I’ll get my first symphony written is if I have to write it for the sake of performance. I’ll never learn russian unless I book a trip to Russia, and I’ll never climb a mountain unless there is a reason for me to get off my backside, get in shape, and get up the ruddy thing.

So where does this leave me now?

I make no promises for the next twelve months, if only because I know not what it is I want that is real.

I make no promises for the next decade, if only because I see how far I’ve come in the last 10 years, therefore I cannot tell you really where I want to be.

I can only say this. I promise to dream, dare to believe that I can achieve them.