I Have Been Breathing For 11,689 Days
Birthdays have become a strange thing for me. They are not something I necessarily look forward to, but I’m also not in the camp of utter obsession over the day I started breathing. I don’t dread the day and I don’t count down to it either. I guess it is, honestly, just another day on the calendar. But, it is certainly an excuse to have cigars and birthday cake.
All of that being said, I place more emphasis on my birthday as a milestone than I do the new calendar year. For me personally, my new year begins now. If I was a corporation my fiscal year would run from March 11 to March 10. What did I accomplish? What do I need to change? I view everything in the time between birthdays.
So, with that out of the way, here are a few things I hope to accomplish in my 32nd year of life.
1. Read More
Reading is something I love to do. I have always loved to do. There has never been a time in my life when I was miserable reading a book. Unfortunately, though, priorities shift year to year, and the past several years have had reading non-existent on my list of things to do. No more! For the past two weeks I have been reading for close to 2 hours every night before shutting eyes to sleep. This pace is easily one book a week (depending on length). I’m sleeping better and feel like a part of me is living again.
(I’m currently reading The One Man by Andrew Gross).
2. Write More
As the saying goes, all great writers are readers. Or something along those lines. The two go hand in hand and I don’t consider it a coincidence that I have a love for both. They both require each other. I’ve had writing on the “back burner” for several years now, so this year I feel like I need to do some catching up. I’m not going to make a claim of how often I will write and publish, but I would like to publish several times a week at a minimum. In addition to writing here I also have two other personal writing projects that I would like to work on. Three if you count my 2008 NaNoWriMo manuscript of 58,000 words that needs editing.
3. Reflect More
In a similar vein with writing more, I want to journal more. I haven’t stopped journaling per se, but I have stopped reflecting. I used to write 750 words in my journal (Day One) every single day (not morning pages, but similar). The historical record is nice, but the process of reflecting is the real benefit. The great thing about journaling and reflecting on life is the immediate benefit you receive. Maybe this is a weird thing to say, but journaling is easily one of the most important things I can do with my time and is something I could write about here for longer than you may appreciate. So I’ll stop. But, getting back to my 750 words of journaling every day is my goal.
4. Home More
Home more means family more. More time with Lindsay and Mozzie. More time where I am around them, and when I am fully present with them. There is a lot that goes into making this one happen, and a large part of it is remote work. Remote work is either a remote full-time job, or miraculously earning enough money from writing projects beginning in June of this year so that I don’t need to find employment. The “Writing Miracle” would be nice, but is not realistic by my doing. So I’m focusing on securing employment from a company who is remote and writing just to write in the meantime. I’m choosing to let some things in life happen with less effort from me.
5. Travel More
Number five is travel more, number nine is save more. How can I have both? Keep the traveling semi-local. Once we break free from Winter’s grasp I want to take advantage of the state we live in. Pennsylvania has plenty to offer and plenty to keep us busy seeing new places and things during the Spring, Summer, and Fall months.
6. Friends More
Tomorrow is not guaranteed. I want to make time for friends this year. I’ve been doing this routinely with several people the past few years, but I need to expand the number of friends I see on a regular basis. Some of these will be one-on-one times to meet and stay in touch, others will be scheduling regular times with groups of friends. We all need to keep in-touch more, and I hope to play a role in making that happen with the friends that I have.
7. Church More
The Church struggle has been very real the past few years, and could certainly use its own post to get into the dirty details, but I’ll just leave it at that: it’s been a struggle. Lindsay and I think we may be hitting a good stride now, and are very hopeful that where we are at now will become our church home. Out goal is to simply show up every Sunday. Period. I’ll save the details for later.
8. Give More
Give more, church more. Tithing? What’s that? Well, for one thing, it is something I haven’t been doing for the past few years. But, with my hopefulness in number seven above, I hope to keep my tithing to a consistent ten percent or more every month. Again, this is a topic I could write multiple posts about, but now is not the time. I want to give more this year.
9. Save More
And I also want to save more. All of this goes hand in hand. I’m convinced of that much. As I’ve written about previously, Lindsay and I have several life goals we are working towards and in order to accomplish most of them need to be doing certain things with the money we have. One of those things is saving more (or putting more aside for specific needs and goals). Spending less may be a better way of putting it.
10. Drink Less
This one may seem random, but it’s just a thing I’d like to work on. Not every time, but sometimes, I tend to have one too many drinks. When enjoying an adult beverage, I’d like to keep it to one or two of whatever the drink is and leave it at that. Nothing good comes after two. Whether it is wine, bourbon, scotch, beer, etc. No more than two.
Notable things that are not on this list that used to be:
- Make more money
- Start more businesses
- Grow an email list to x
- Learn how to “hack” the latest social network
- Blah blah blah
The focus this year is less trying, more living.
Thanks for reading!
