The Big List of 2023 Goals: Prologue

 Long-time readers of this blog may recall that every year, I work on a list of goals for the coming year.

I say "work on".  What this really represents is a rather intellectually agonizing process where I look at last year's goals, look at what I want to do for the upcoming year (which may be based on what did not get done last year), and then distill everything into a list.  This distillation process easily takes over a month; it usually begins around Thanksgiving and ends just prior to the New Year.

The list breaks down into the "Rule of Five", a concept I liberated from the author Jeffrey Gitomer because 1) It is simple; 2) It limits categories; and 3) I have five fingers on my hand so it makes it easy to remember.  The categories are God, Girls (Family), Gold (Career), Iaijustu (primarily Iaijustu, but things that support it), and Ichiryo Gusoku, my "one suit of armor/one plot of land" philosophy.  All of this creates the acronym "GGGII", which means precisely nothing (except that I have to remember only two letters multiple times).

This year's goal setting, however, is complicated by a series of factors.

The first complicating factor is simply that this year is a year of big changes.  Our oldest child, Nighean Gheal, is both graduated from college and now living in The Big Big City with a real job.  The likelihood she will be back for more than short visits is low (barring awfulness, of course).  Our middle child, Nighean Bhan, graduated from college in December, is applying to graduate school - and announced during the Christmas Break that she will be moving out soon.  And our youngest child, Nighean Dhonn, is a senior in high school that will be going to college in the Fall.  In other words, likely within a month we will be down to one child, and within 9 months, down to zero.  That changes a great many things, including not only physical people in the house but money and time and the fact that we have a whole new relational dynamic to work through.

The second complicating factor is the fact that my job remains a bit in limbo.  2023 will be a make or break year for my employer.  If we make it, a great many things likely become possible.  If we break it - well, you will all be treated to a job search in 2023 series.  I have literally no control over either of the outcomes (naturally) and because of my unique position in the company, it makes more sense for me to risk going down with the ship that to part ways when there is still a chance of things breaking to the positive side.

The third complicating factor is The Ranch.

The Ranch, as most will recall, is the 90 or so acres that my parents own in literally what is God's Country (although not officially called that, of course).  It been my desire to move there for a very long time, at least 20 years or more.  The difficulty is that, in speaking with The Ravishing Mrs. TB, it is not quite as burning a desire for her at this time.

That is understandable to me:  she has made a life here in New Home. She has a job she likes.  She has social groups that she enjoys being a part of, including a group that she travels with.  And while I have a long association with The Ranch in a deep way, hers is much less of a spiritual connection (if I may call it that) and much more of a visiting relationship:  it is lovely and scenic, but not somewhere she can quite imagine herself living at the moment.

At the same time, she understands what The Ranch means to me - and is willing to try to find a workable solution, even if it means a sort of modified living arrangement for a time.

What this means, of course, is that we are working through it. For now, I am still able to travel back once a month for a week.  But if we do not fully intend to move there, it would make more sense to rent the house out for the estate - which to be honest, I have reservations about, both in general as a landlord and specifically as someone who wants to live there (and would like the house more or less in one piece).

This are complicated matters that perhaps even the wisest could not negotiate well, and I am hardly the wisest.    But what it may mean is figuring out how to manage living part-time or more in two places for some period of time, while still trying to advance the things I think are important.

All of this, of course is the prologue I have been wrestling with as I have worked on this year's plans.  Because for me, even the simplest activity seems to become incredibly complex.  The results of that complexity, if I may indulge your patience, will appear in tomorrow's post.