To hell with bucket lists.
Posted by Mike
You measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you. - Carter Chambers, as played by Morgan Freeman.
Every year I make a list of things to do that year. I refuse to call them resolutions because no one ever does those anyway. I am slightly OCD and organized in life (otherwise I procrastinate horribly) but it's written on a list, I'ma friggin do it. It's a weird little compulsion that I've harnessed as a way to Get Shit Done(TM). At some point, an enterprising young woman will figure this out and try to write "propose to me" on a piece of paper and slip it to me. Meh. Might be easier than doing it on my own. At any rate my equivalence of resolutions is a public list of all the stuff I want to get done for the year. This year's was actually not half bad. I was going to link it in this post to give an example of my weird to-do list mentality when I realized- holy crap, I've accomplished most of my list already. The year is barely half over and I've got like 2.5 items out of 10 to go.
So what does this have to do with anything? Other than pointing out to all you slackers how much I've done so far, I was going to announce that I took my first stab at surfing today and could cross it off the list. That's when I noticed- it wasn't even on the damn list. I had put it off in the past because I thought I wasn't in good enough shape or coordinated enough (newsflash, I'm still not!) but the idea was still kicking around in the back of my mind. "Must be a bucket list item or something", I thought. Not that I maintain one, or even like the idea of one mind you, but I've been kicking around the idea of learning ever since a friend offered to teach me. While we're on the subject, had anyone even heard of the phrase before the Jack Nicholson movie came out? I certainly hadn't and now it's a cemented into everyone's vocabulary to the point you couldn't get it out with an Urban Dictionary sized crowbar. I've come to the decision that I hate this damn phrase and everything it represents.
Because it makes people lazy, that's why.
Life is about goals people. Wait, no, I take that back. Life is about having and accomplishing your goals. This "bucket list" bullshit encourages people to put their desires on a magical list and get to it before they die. It's the ultimate New Year's resolution / procrastinator bastard love child. It's resolutions for lazy people- don't worry about accomplishing them this year, you have your whole life. You don't need that kind of pressure man!
F that. I got junk to do and no magical "eventually" wish list is going to make it happen for me. There is a list, it is short, it has an expiration date, and shit is getting done man. Each year's list builds off the previous years. Bucket list. Whatever.
And yeah, I'm going surfing against next weekend. Probably every weekend from here on actually, until I can actually manage to stay upright on the board for longer than 0.2s. I will however be buying a rashguard because right now my chest looks like a slab of raw meat.
I really need to make better lists. 2010's already needs more stuff on it.
Peace out!
Gooooooal(s)!
Posted by Mike
Try not. Do or do not. There is no try. ~Yoda
photo credit: carolyntiry
A lot of people don't like to make New Year's resolutions for a variety of reasons. I'd like to think that I've heard every excuse there is at this point but people continually find new ways to surprise me. The two most common (to date) that I've heard are:
- "Oh, I don't need a reason to make goals, I have them year-round."
- "People never stick to resolutions anyway so why bother."
There's a whole slew of ways to argue these points, but for me it just isn't worth it. While I agree with the first statement in principle, New Years and its associated traditions provide a logical, easily remembered point in time to set goals for yourself for the coming year. If you're committed enough to not need such a landmark date that's great, but I'll stick with what works for me.
In years past I never bothered setting goals for myself. Sometimes (infrequently) New Years was a good time to look over what happened to me in the last year and try to figure out what went wrong. The past two years were the first times I tried setting concrete goals for myself and it worked out pretty well. I think that where this practice fails for a lot of folks is that they don't set concrete enough goals. If you don't know your goal, how can you judge your progress or success / failure?
Now without further pontificating- my goals for 2010.
Fitness
- I want to maintain a 30-31 inch waist.
- Make it to the gym 4 days a week at least every other week, if not every week.
- Reduce my bodyfat. My scale currently says I'm at ~8-9%, but I wonder how accurate that is. That might be true overall, but most of my bodyfat is concentrated around the 'ole waistline. Needs to even out!
- Be able to squat 160lbs, bench press 180lbs, and do 100 pushups. Not necessarily all of these back to back
Hobbies
- Read at least 3 books a month (or 36 books for the year) with at least half being non-fiction. I'm great at tearing through fiction but I'm slow on the nonfic.
- Draw more. I haven't actively sketched anything in years, and the LA Ink marathon I watched while fighting off the deadly ninja sinus virus ..thing rekindled the creative urge in me. I haven't decided what I'm going to draw yet but I want to have at least four finished pieces by the end of the year.
- Photography. I definitely want to take more pictures, and I've started on that by joining the 365 Project. It's not a competition- you just take a picture every day and post it. I also want to enter at least two photo contests this year.
- San Diego Exploration. At least once a month, try something new around town. This includes hiking.
Self Improvement
- Learn a foreign language. This is one of my failed goals from last year, sadly. Logically enough I'm starting with Latin American Spanish since it's the second most popular language here. I'd also like to be able to talk to the nice smiling people who run the 24 hour burrito drive thru near my house.
- Add a new technical skill / certification. I'm leaning strongly toward PHP here due to my increasing WordPress involvement. Currently I'm more of a talented amateur hacker at it than anything else.
So thems my goals for the year. The fitness ones should be a breeze, the hobby ones a bit harder, and I think that the self improvement ones will be the hardest of all.
About Me
Lackadaisical writer, amateur photographer, professional grump, and all around spiffy IT guy.
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