I wore a jacket to class today and wished I had taken my gloves out of my car because the iced coffee I was holding in my left hand exposed my skin to the air which is a little bit harsher than yesterday. The fourth quarter has been looming over my head for a month now, but it didn’t hit until I looked down at my phone screen: Wednesday, November 1st.
The fourth quarter means colder weather, exams, and holidays with relatives you see once a year, though it embodies more than the dread of getting out of bed in the morning because your housemates cannot agree on a temperature to keep the thermostat at. The fourth quarter is when companies collect their data from the past year and make goals for the upcoming. It is when the most money is spent, leaving consumers’ hands to reside in the pockets of multimillionaires, so they can make even more next year. It is full of analytics, finances, and plans for the future. I think we should all be paying attention to the fourth quarter. We should be looking back on the past year, reflecting on our goals, seeing how we can still achieve them, and making new goals to accomplish in the new year.
I have rejected the idea of New Year's resolutions for a long time. I hated the trivial empty promises to oneself that diminished after a few weeks. Nobody talks about their resolutions by the summertime because they are too embarrassed to say they didn’t achieve them or, worse, that they forgot about them. My resolutions take the form of a loose phrase or affirmation to keep in the back of my mind so I stay on track with who I want to be, which has proven to be much more effective than doing 100 squats every day of the week. One year all I wanted to do was be able to say that I was doing better than I ever was and sure enough I did. This isn’t a resolution, this is an intention.
Now, this doesn’t mean that I don’t hold goals for myself because l did want to read 30 books this year, but I changed it to 24 and have only completed 12, and that is okay. Goals help to keep people on track and if I didn’t make a goal at all I would probably still be at 6. My intention is what I live by for the year. It’s the theme for my Pinterest mood board and embodies the decisions I make for myself. Now, my goals are a subset of that intention and even attempting them is enough to satisfy myself because I am still living up to the version of myself that I want to show up as.
In the beginning days of 2023, I wasn’t that focused on anything but soaking in every moment of my freshman year of college, so my intention for the year was delayed. The first quarter of the year was a whirlwind that landed me in a puddle of heartbreak and realizing that I wasn’t living up to who I wanted to be. So, from then on, my intention of the year was to realign with my true values. Under this intention, my goals were to protect my peace, rediscover my inner child, and practice self-control and maturity. I started living more to the standards I wanted to and not what everyone else was doing. Staying in on the weekends has never felt better and I’ve never had more motivation or success academically and career-wise. I feel like, for lack of a better term, I finally have my shit together and that is exactly what I needed out of 2023. It is important to give myself credit, though there are still some things I didn’t get done this year. I haven’t read 30 books this year. I haven’t posted on “Lost in Thought” at all. I haven’t gotten back into a set workout routine or hit new personal records. Just because all of these things I haven’t done can be attempted in the last quarter of 2023, doesn’t mean I can’t still achieve them. I used to give up on something when I didn’t think I’d achieve it, but now I have realized that if I start now my goal will be delayed but at least it won’t be discarded.
Now that the fourth quarter is upon us, it is time to think about what I want my intention to be for the new year. This year I will be involved in my extracurriculars, serving my elected position(s) in my Greek organization, finishing my sophomore year of college, and going abroad for a semester in Italy. This is a big year for meeting milestones and the goals that I have created will only create more, inching me one step closer to success. I will write more and post on “Lost in Thought,” as well as get some pieces published in literary magazines. I will reach my fitness goals to prove to myself that I can accomplish them and to enjoy the process of falling in love with running. I will take every opportunity that comes my way. I will meet the milestones I make for myself, even if I didn’t make them in the past because the lessons that I have learned in the past year have prepared me for them. I’ve already made my 2024 mood board encapsulating these ideas and a confident free spirit who strives for success while having fun as she is completely sure of herself.
2024 is my year to take the woman I have become in my year of being nineteen and apply the lessons I have learned to strive for success. This year, I will officially be halfway through my college career which has started to hit me. I can see parts of myself separating from girlhood and entering womanhood as this time approaches and internships and desk jobs dance in my head. My main and overarching goal has always been to be creative since I was a child. Now that I have a greater sense of who I want to be, creativity is still my main drive as going into public relations, copywriting, advertising, social media, and freelance writing is inspiring to me. It’s funny because I have used the skills necessary for those jobs my whole life. This blog is proof of that and it's how I know that I will love what I do. I still can’t believe that I am not sixteen anymore, let alone preparing myself for my future career, so thank you for following me along throughout the journey.
“Lost in Thought” is like a time capsule of my life because, in each entry, I am not the same girl I used to be. Now I make my bed every morning and only nap using my throw blanket instead of getting under the comforter because that’s what my freshman year roommate did. A year or two ago, I probably wouldn’t have even described myself as a girl in the opening line of this paragraph, opting for a gender-neutral term to avoid presumptions about my silly thoughts, but now I am proud of my feminine nature. The Emma who is writing this post feels more like a child than she did in her childhood as she started reimplementing pink into her wardrobe and takes time in her evenings to fix her chipped nail polish. Wednesday nights will always taste like bowtie pasta in olive oil in my dad’s galley kitchen; the only school night that felt like a vacation. I first started designing this blog in eighth grade while eating bowls of bowtie pasta on my dad’s armchair, pretending to do homework while he and my sister watched TV on the couch. Many parts of me have changed, and many have stayed the same, but all versions of myself are documented here and that is so special to me as I get older and prepare to enter another year, my twentieth year.
The coming of this fourth quarter has given me perspective on how far I have come and how much closer I am to my future self than I thought I would be at nineteen. This has been a happy and necessary check-in, so thank you for reading I am excited to get back to posting more frequently. Thank you to 2023 for showing me who I am, and to 2024, I can't wait to see what you bring me.
A presto!
Emma Claire