As longer term readers may know and anticipate, usually at the end of December or beginning of January I post what I believe my goals for the next year will be.
In years past, this has been an agonizing grind at times - agonizing because I endlessly worry that I am going to get things wrong rather than right and somehow miss "the thing I am supposed to be doing". But the years 2023 and 2024 with their combination of two layoffs, a death, and a relocation have somewhat put that sort of thing to bed.
The other factor - a reality that I do not care to reflect on but is absolutely true - is that I am likely reaching what will be the last third of my life, given the male genetics on both sides of my family. To be frank, time grows shorter, not longer
To help focus my thinking for the year - something I consciously put off this December - I revisited the book Essentialism over a two period at the end of 2024.
Written in 2011, by Greg McKeown and recommended by my weight coach The Berserker, it is a book which attempts to give guidance to the question of "What should I be spending my life on?" (A review from 2021 is here).
When I originally started this post, it was intended as a one-time listing of my goals and how I got to them (or sort of got to them) for 2025. But as I thought about it more, I realized that this might very well indeed make for a good longer in depth series:
1) To help me really walk back through what the outcome of this two-day period of thinking and review was to see if I really "got it";
2) To give myself the intellectual luxury of thinking through these things on longer term (rather than just rushing through it and calling it good.
3) As a wider aspiration, I realize that most of my readership are likely in the "latter" stages of their lives. Perhaps they have figured out what their essentials are (and I can benefit from that) or even that in my wanderings on the subject, it can help others to think about the true essentials in their own lives, no matter where they find themselves along the journey.
From McKeown's Introduction:
"To harness the courage we need to get on the right path, it pays to reflect on how short life really is and what we want to accomplish in the little time we have left. As poet Mary Oliver wrote 'Tell me, what is it you plan to do/with your one wild and precious life?'"
The only sensible choice, argues McKeown, is to find the essentials - and do that.
As you might expect, I don't dwell on my past much at all, well at least in terms of what I have done or failed to do. I'm pretty good at telling myself that given the same set of choices and circumstances to do over, I would likely have done them exactly the same way and then moving on.
ReplyDeleteLikewise, I don't dwell much on my future either. I don't like agonizing over choices that haven't even come over my horizon. I just tell myself that I will deal with them when they arrive, as I have done all my life thus far, and not worry about them until then.
Thus, for the most part, I focus only on today or my near term. I have a big project to build in the spring and a couple long vacations in the planning stages for next year but other than those things, I'm mostly planning out the rest of my day today.
A wise man once told me, "Ignorance is bliss."
Ed, I think the thing I am trying to do differently this time is to figure out what the really Essential things are to my life, and then work my life around those. There is some of element of goal setting involved, but it is a more focused goal setting based those things that are "Essentials" in my life.
DeleteI figure it is worth an experiment for a year, if nothing else.
Jane - Noting that I did indeed see your comment. Unfortunately, it exceeds the rules as listed below.
DeleteTo reflect on life and how to live it may require wisdom at least, for my part that trait took years to develop and I would still not call it wisdom......just the school of hard knocks......:) Good luck TB.
ReplyDeleteThank you Anon.
DeleteI, too, seem to be too much a student of "Learn from my own mistake, rather than the mistakes of others".
I'm just getting into the last third if I last as long as my aunts and uncles. Almost all went until 90 or more. But no one knows if tomorrow will even dawn for them. Each day stands on it's own. The idea I work is to plan for the future and live like today is it. And that is even a struggle. I try not to worry about future. I like to be abreast of the current, so I can see the general direction of the society I'm in. That helps with the planning. I'm flexible enough to jump on some things immediately if I see a trend. Other things, I take on faith. And truly, all is in God's hand. Even the breath I'm breathing right now.
ReplyDeleteSTxAR - To be fair I guess, I do have that occasional thread of "longer life" on both sides of my family. It is a bit spotty here and there though, and not something I am counting on.
DeleteIndeed, we do not have anything but today (probably). And I can plan for the future I know about, but not the future as it likely turns out (as both you and I have seen) - and honestly, I am not sure how much that really matters. I can barely predict tomorrow's weather, let alone the course of events.
My biggest problem is that I tend to focus on too many things and thus do not really achieve or accomplish any of them. I would like to change that.
"What should I be spending my life on?" is a very good question. In my thinking, it seems to have a different nuance than making a list of goals. Maybe it's the word "spending," because it implies an investment of daily time and energy. "Life" implies something long term. Goals come and go. They are achieved or changed. But how I'm spending my life is my day to day occupation, whether I'm aware of it or not.
ReplyDeleteLeigh, it really is. Goals can be part of the "Essential", but we can spend our lives on goals and never get near doing the things that we alone can do.
DeleteAnd I think that McKeown's point is that every answer can be different for every person; there is not right or wrong "essential". But the critical thing is that, to your point, we all end up spending our life - our time - on something. And there are so many things we can do that are either not at all useful but equally not as essential to our lives as what we could be spending them on.
TB, I should have started here - with your first post on this subject. I think I might have entered into processing your (and McKeown's) ideas with some more thoughtful (and wise?) hesitation.
ReplyDeleteBecki - But your comment earlier reminds me that I should keep a relatively consistent keel when I writing this. If I am straying too far away from McKeown's thoughts or inserting my own, that is certainly not fair to him and his writing.
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