So, at the end of last year I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish in 2011, you can find that list here, or you can just continue reading as I’m going to be self-evaluating how well I’ve done accomplishing the items on the list here.
Here’s the list:
1. Submit writing every month to a publication – I submitted some poems back in January and February. They were either rejected or I never heard back. Rejection makes it hard to keep trying…
2. Develop, outline, draft and write two short stories – I’ve started three stories and thrown them all away. I need to seriously start looking at this as one of these is going to be used for the next goal.
3. Participate in NaNoWriMo – Can’t do this ’til November
4. Review Latin – I’ve started reading Winnie Ille Pooh, and Harrius Potter, I’ve also ordered Harrius Potter II now I just need to sit down and study!
5. Learn algebra – I’ve been working over at Khan Academy and I hope to have this, and Geometry, done by the end of the year!
6. Do the Lake Berryessa two mile swim – Cancelled due to freakish weather… Doesn’t matter cause I never signed up…
7. Bike a century – Training started good in the spring but then I got busy. I can still do this one though! I have all of fall.
8. Buy as few new things as possible – Only major purchase I can think of for the year is my new Ipod.
9. Do more with my hobbies (besides gaming) – I’ve sold off a lot of my spare table top gaming models, the things I’m never going to paint or play with. I’ve finished up all my BFG models. I’ve even recently pulled out of storage much of my old art supplies… The goal now is to do some art a week and paint my Hordes models before the end of the year. I even started taking pictures again but all the photo development places have disappeared and I don’t have the spare money or time to develop my own film (I know, I’m awful.)
10. Jump out of a plane – This was sort of a joke goal when I made it ( I couldn’t remember the original 10th goal, it ended up the 11th.) Now though I kind of want to do it for real. There’s even a local company to go through. If I manage to have $125-175 lying around before the end of the year I’m going to do this.
11. Meditate everyday – I successfully did Zazen meditation for about four months and then work got busy and I lost my schedule and my mojo… I’ve been unable to get back into things.
Conclusions – The most interesting thing that strikes me after doing this yearly goal project for the last three years is how incapable I am of anticipating what will hold my interest in the future. I suppose all planning falls prey to this, we can never know what it is in the future that will hold our interest but know with perfect clarity has interested us in the past and is currently holding our interest. So we plan one, five, ten years out into the future assuming we’re going to be the same person then as we are now; when that is never the case. I used to feel a lot of guilt over missing goals but it doesn’t make sense to punish yourself for not completing your goals. In a very real since the current you and the person that made those goals aren’t the same person.
I’m doing okay this year, but in the last seven months my priorities and interests have shifted and holding myself to goals that no longer suit me doesn’t make any sense.
On #9 the craft center is really reasonably priced for developing. I fell pray to that too honestly.. and switched to a digital SLR camera… and while i feel like a bad person because I dont use film any longer.. I find I shoot way more.