As of yesterday, I’ve been 28 for an entire month and until very recently I hadn’t set or announced any definite goals for my 28th year. It isn’t that I haven’t been thinking about what I’d like to accomplish this year, I have been. I simply found it hard to make a complete yet concise list.
Over the past couple days, I set aside time to compile and edit the list of my hopeful accomplishments for my upcoming year. There are things like completing a half-marathon, practicing music on a regular basis, and developing myself as a leader. Overall, my goals fall into one of three categories.
(1) More Value, Less Volume
I learned this principle from being an endurance athlete and I want to apply in other areas of my life as well. My diet, my media habits, and how I spend my time could all benefit from a little less quantity and a lot more quality. This is not to say that I won’t ever go to McDonald’s this year, drink excessive free refills of Caribou coffee, or binge watch clips from The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on YouTube; I just hope to do those things with less and less frequency.
(2) Changing My Lenses
In all actuality I will probably need to get new glasses this year and with new glasses will come a (slightly) better perception of the world that surrounds me.
Metaphorically I hope to see my world in a more positive light in the coming year. There are bad things and terrible situations in the world, and I refuse to gloss over them. I won’t ever try to put a positive spin on things like cancer, war, or poverty; things like that are simply and completely terrible. However, I do find there are a lot of “neutral” things in my life. Unfortunately, my default mode is to interpret them negatively and use them to deprecate myself and my life choices.
One good example of this is my bed. I have a pretty small room in the house I’m renting. In fact, I’m fairly sure it was never meant to be a bedroom because it doesn’t have any closet space whatsoever. When I moved into the house last January my solution to the lack of storage space was to loft my bed and use the space underneath as a closet. It works pretty well, but makes my sleeping situation a bit comical. When I lie on my back I have about 8 inches of space between my face and the ceiling, so I refer to my bed as "the sleeping pod". So, I’m given the option of viewing this as a negative: let’s be real, I’m 28, I should sleep like an adult in an adult bed. I might as well have a race-car bed frame, right? I can also view this as a positive: I’m 28 and I still get top bunk, which is awesome! Plus, I’m living within my means using the space I have to its full potential.
(3) Keep on Keepin’ On
The movie Joe Dirt is a classic for many reasons, one of which is that it is full of little nuggets of wisdom, like the quote above. I’m a pretty great guy and I’ve done some amazing things in my previous 27 years on this earth. I hope to become a better man and keep doing amazing things. ‘Nuff Said.
