21

On goals, perspective, & another year

Yesterday, I turned 21.

Over the past few months I’ve read a lot of articles from the LinkedIn series If I were 22. The most interesting part was reading about people’s regrets — I was actually surprised with how many of the perspectives seemed to overlap from article to article.

After reading these excerpts along with hundreds of others I found online, I compiled a list of development goals for my 21st year (hopefully to get a head start before I hit the big 2-2, myself). The things on my 21st year bucket list all fall into one or more of these goals.

Patience

Without a doubt, the most important item on this list. I would even say that the root cause of why these developments are on this list in the first place comes down to a lack of patience. Action items aren’t particularly clear with this one just yet, but I’m looking for inspiration.

Fill in the Gaps

To fill in the gaps you need to get out of your comfort zone and accept that you’re going to feel stupid for the first little while. I was taught this lesson by my Grade 10 math teacher and I have been amazed with the impact it’s made on so many areas of my life. You are comprised of your experiences and these experiences are, for the most part, completely unique to you. For example, my experiences have taught me the subtle differences between a Miele and a Bosch dishwasher. Mostly useless information, but regardless I can now semi-confidently hold a conversation about appliances. Someone else’s experiences may have led them to know a lot about coding, for instance, or epidemics, or not-for-profits, or construction. Everyone has gaps in their experiences; there’s always more to learn. This list is a list of gaps.

Read More

Back to patience. I often start books, get the gist of them, and put them down, normally about two thirds of the way through. That needs to change. Right now the majority of my time spent reading is focused on textbooks and online articles. I want to start reading more fiction and more stories on topics I’m completely unfamiliar with, which I think will be one way to start filling in the gaps I mentioned earlier.

Cut the Crap

Something has to give and I’m more than happy to give the crap. The crap is mindlessly scrolling on Facebook. The crap is watching TV shows that you have absolutely no interest in but just watch to see what happens next. The crap is Imgur and BuzzFeed (never used them, but they’re a plague worth mentioning). This list will fill my new found free time.

Write Everyday

Well on my way with this one already, thanks to Medium. Most of what I write ends up unpublished, but regardless I think it’s important to just let your mind wander and jot down whatever thoughts happen to be on your mind that day.

Exercise

I‘ve had more than a few false starts on this one, and haven’t really found a routine that clicks just yet. I’m going to try and talk to as many people as I can to learn about their routines and the different ways they keep active during the day, which will hopefully provide some good insight. More on this later.

People

Every person has a story to tell, and every one of those stories is worth hearing. Over the past month alone I’ve built more connections with people than I probably did all of last year. It’s been enlightening to hear peoples perspectives, and to use this network to connect people of similar interests. I want this to be a year of storytelling; a year of people.

I’ll be revisiting all of these goals in 6 months’ time.

Follow me on Twitter @evanjlittle.