Goals: 2021 Edition

 As some of you know that have been long time readers here, I am usually consumed by goal setting at this time of year.  It tends to be the culmination of a one to two month review of what I want to do, numerous drafts to documents, a final kvetching to myself as I look at them, and then the "final-final" version which is supposed to be ready on 01 January.  In fact, last year's process was even more involved:  I had a spreadsheet set up with 13 different worksheets including a daily schedule, various things I was going to learn, and then 1,2,3,5,7, and 10 years goals.  All quite logically put together, carefully chronicling my transition from what I was doing (Senior Management, Quality) to a form of gentile retirement and second career.

And then, of course, 2020 happened.

I laugh - a bit bitterly of course - looking at what I had written down for this year.  Most of my "career' goals had to change as soon as my career changed.  The vacations we had planned fell into the dust.  A burgeoning interest - wine - crashed into the pavement (with lots of cross outs on the spreadsheet) as working on learning wines in a world that was happily collapsing economically seemed like a fairly bad idea.  Of all the things I had listed, I hit three:  Write 350 blog entries, maximize my  retirement savings, and have a set amount of emergency savings.

This year has been a much more restrained goal setting experience.

For a long time, I did not want to do it - the sting of last year's cognitive dissonance in existence made any sort of planning seem wildly inappropriate.  But one needs something to aim at, lest one completely lose all sense of focus.

My goals this year are in a way, much more pedestrian - and much more under my control.  They are also much simplified in terms of the things I want to accomplish.  As before, I use the Rule of Five (Five being the number of fingers on my hand, which is something I can keep track of):  God, Girls (Family), Gold (Career), Iaijutsu, and Ichiryo Gusoku  - or GGGII, if you like acronyms.

Gold has an unusual amount of activity (for me), but I suppose that is to be expected, given the triple combination of a change in career, a general concern about the stability of my job, and the realization that I may make a shift much more quickly than I imagine.  Iaijustu - a combination of Iai practice, Japanese, and strength/aerobic training - is much more a pass/fail sort of definition than the theoretical concepts I often write in.  Girls  has mechanisms for spending time with the family in what is rapidly dwindling as family time (everyone is getting older and more independent, these things happen).  Ichiryo Gusoku is cheese, gardening, and translating Old English.

God is the most simple:  "1) Find a church that fits; 2) Develop meditation and prayer." 

What I have not left space for - because I do not know how to meaningfully make space for it - is the major changes that may come that I cannot foresee. I have a hint of this, a vague clue that they may come - but to plan for the unplannable is to dabble in worlds I simply cannot fathom.

As usual, I have no sense of how many of these goals can be accomplished or to what degree:  Not surprisingly perhaps, 2020 has left a bad taste in my mouth.  But for the first time in a while, I can look at these and think that each and every one of them is achievable this year.

That, in itself, is something.