You don’t always have to ‘listify’ your life.
I love lists. Lists stop my life from coming apart at the seams. They represent order, harmony and action. Lists are the holy grail for those of us who are self-diagnosed with OCD.
I remember typing down a few things just before finishing my final year of high school, a laundry list of things that I wanted to accomplish by the time I was 25. Inane, stupid things like driving a Swedish car, working for a top publisher, getting my own place, writing for a slew of online publications, making a long-term monetary investment, and perhaps the most interesting of all, finding a wife (I’m working on that one).
It’s embarrassing to look at that list, especially when I consider where I am now, halfway across the globe teaching in Asia.
What’s telling, though, is that I’ve actually accomplished almost everything on that list, and now my list of long-term goals, for the most part, is poles apart from what I crafted as a high-school kid.
It’s telling that I decided to give up the relentless lifestyle which I wanted so badly when I was 18, for the complete opposite, more than ten years later.
And that begs the question, was this list of goals the best thing I could have put together? Those goals weren’t perhaps the worst (I mean, I don’t regret anything about investing in property and making solid financial choices) but looking back, the list itself was more symbolic of the drive for material success, not personal wellness. In many ways I am still focused on how I aim to achieve financial longevity but those goals are much more considered and tempered with the experience that comes with age.
Don’t be afraid to make lists, but don’t be afraid to throw them out the window either.
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