on learning spanish & following your delights
This week I’m nerding out about Spanish.
I’ve wanted to learn Spanish most of my life. I remember being fascinated by it as a little kid. I’ve always been acutely drawn towards other languages (I also practiced sign language, starting at six years old!), cultures, and travel. I love people. I’m amazed by anything that can draw us together, including learning another nationality’s language and being able to communicate, crossing barriers that couldn’t be crossed before.
I love the language of Spanish. I think it’s beautiful and interesting, and speaking the most basic of conversations, with a generous native speaker who tries to help me along, understand me, and offer words and tips, makes me want more every time. Whenever I hear it or get to interact in it even slightly, I feel a thrill.
Thrills — no matter how tiny or big — are usually urges you should follow. We want to pay attention to the things that light us up the most. What are the deepest desires of your heart? If that sounds too weighty, too serious, too committed — then what are the most whimsical, fun desires of your heart? What is the lightest, most buoyant, tiny thing you can do that will pick you and make you soar?
The big dreams — the strongest urges, the things we tend to feel most jealous about when witnessed in others’ lives — are really important and must be chosen. We must choose our dreams. We must choose ourselves and the lives we are truly meant to be living. We must work for what our heart longs for, never silencing it, never numbing the feelings, never giving way to fear. We must move forward, through jealousy and insecurity and resistance, through all the reasons we think we cannot have or do what we really wish for.
What do you long for? What’s the best that could happen? Can you start right now?
But also…
The tiny, floating, whimsical dreams and desires are so important too. Not everything you do or want has to be life-changing or monumental. You can do things just because. You can pursue a little inkling of a tune inside your heart. You can try what delights you on a whim. You can enjoy what makes you happy, without feeling like you have to give it everything you’ve got or it has to lead to something BIG to be worthwhile.
What you love is worthwhile simply because you love it.
I have spent hours today practicing Spanish, and it is so fun for me. I keep coming face to face with the reality of: if I have been saying (to myself, to others, in the quiet, underneath other demands) I want to do something for years and years but still haven’t done it — as if all I have are time and guarantees — well, why the hell not? I have loved Spanish forever, and I really do want to be bilingual one day. I used to have a dream of taking the official certifying test and passing as a fluent Spanish speaker! Now, I’m even imagining becoming trilingual because I’ve discovered I also love Italian!
I love music, and it’s one of the big, identity-rooted, lifelong loves and dreams. There are wishes I have within music that were ignored and shut down for a long time, and because music is a bigger deal to me, there’s more fear.
I also love Spanish, and this one isn’t so much of a high-stakes dream facing a lot of resistance — it’s fun and lighthearted and gives me a thrill. It’s a fancy I’ve always had.
Both of these things need me to pursue them!
If there are things I say I’ve wanted in my life for SO long — music, Spanish, travel, etc. — and I haven’t brought them to fruition and don’t spend time investing in them… why not?? Isn’t it time? What do I have to lose in beginning? Nothing; as opposed to how much I would lose in never making these delights a part of my life. There is so much to gain.
Learning Spanish gets put off due to de-prioritization and lack of clarity or engagement for moving forward, not having a strong habit or community for it, making excuses, not blending it into the normal, easily upkept, natural parts of the rest of my life, merely forgetting how much joy it brings me...
I’m learning Spanish because I want to, it’s fun, it’s a great way to spend my time and enjoy myself and further my education and development. I’m learning Spanish for future goals but also just because I know it will make me happy.
What are you nerding out on? Are there any buried or silenced dreams, no matter how big or small, that are waiting for your long overdue attention? Why not start today?
