Well, hello there. It’s Tuesday, but it feels like a Monday for the Americans among us who had Presidents’ Day off. Still, making it to lunchtime is a little victory for us all, eh? Today’s poll, partially inspired by Nanna’s lovely piece yesterday, is about goals.
We all use goals to keep us motivated. They can be small goals for the day (“Clean all the things!”) or goals for a year (“Get a job! That pays!”). But everyone has those bigger goals. The kind of lifetime goals that you know you only have a small chance of achieving but you hold onto anyway.
Mine are so rote as to almost not be worth mentioning: run a marathon and publish a novel. And I keep them in the back of my mind despite the fact that I have a bad knee, and I lack literary talent. But as long as they’re there, unfufilled, it gives me something to shoot for.
What about you, commenters? What are your pie-in-the-sky dreams or goals that you keep in your hearts?
Photo: Getty
20 replies on “Lunchtime Poll 2/22”
Oh, I struggle with this. The number of enviable life goals I’ve crossed off my list already is embarrassing, but none of them have ended up having that much of an influence on my sense of self (or sense of self-worth). I think my ultimate goal needs to be the happy acceptance of who and what I am, so that my goals can be something less consequential. (Is this why people turn to spirituality?)
What’s it like for the rest of you? Have any of you accomplished something that’s either made some deeper impact on your subjective experience of yourself and the world, or achieved something that you thought would, but didn’t? Maybe I’m just picking the wrong goals.
I want to be a well known, highly sought after, certified Sexuality Educator. I’d love to be called to do conferences, workshops, teach classes in Universities, all over the continent. And eventually get my own TV show.
I’ve come to terms with the idea that I may never meet/marry anyone. While I’d like to, I’m also content with the idea that it may just be me, myself, and I for the foreseeable future. With that in mind, my goal is to create a life for myself that is as fulfilling as I want it to be. Fabulous craftsman style house for me and my cat, an unlimited yarn budget, and work that I enjoy (and actually pays me what I deserve).
I already met one of my life goals – I am being paid to write! Whoooo! It’s much more boring than I thought it would be, haha.
The next goal is to get paid for something I write by choice (i.e. not writing copy that gets assigned to me). I do think the copywriting job is greatly improving my motivation and teaching me better writer-habits (like not checking Persephone every paragraph. Only every other paragraph, haha.)
I would also like to run a half-marathon. Maybe a full one, but I’d be satisfied with the half. Right now, though, the mystery-pain makes it hurt a lot when I run, so that’s shelved for now. Biking doesn’t hurt as much, though, and there’s a 300-mile bike ride for charity that I’d like to do this summer. I need to start training by mid-March, so I’m hoping that the mystery pain gets resolved by then (since I need to be able to comfortably ride 40 miles a day).
Two:
1. Live in Europe for longer than a few months (I’ve got dual citizenship).
2. (I know this one is pretty much zilch) Maybe see if I could wrangle a modeling contract again. When I started college Ford gave me an offer that I refused, so I could attend school. I’m 20lbs heavier, mostly muscle, but it was an ego boost.
I want to live in Scotland (or France) and LARP Brigadoon (or An American in Paris. But, the LARPing is secondary – it’s the living abroad that I’m really aiming for.
I also want to own a bakery. I’m happiest when I’m baking and would love to be able to spend my days covered in flour and wearing an apron.
I want to live outside of the U.S. Preferably Latin America. I have in college for study abroad, but I want to do it AGAIN, as a real, adult person.
I lived in Sweden on study abroad, and as much as I’d love to go back to visit, I imagine that living there as a grown up would be far less interesting and exciting. You can’t exactly plead “culture shock” (aka: I was out dancing every night and traveling around the country instead of studying) and take Pass/Fail instead of a letter grade for an actual job.
My dream goals change with the day, the season, the mood but at the moment my biggest dream – the image in my head that motivates me are shelves. Yeah, shelves.
But the shelves hold two very different things. The first is a floor to ceiling wall of shelves literally brimming with canned goods that I put together in my own kitchen. The cans would contain everything from straight up canned green beans and various other vegetables to canned meats, sauces, soups and if the recipes exist, pie fillings. It would be the most beautiful pantry ever. On display. Like Art.
The second is a room lined with shelves that vary from floor to ceiling and floor to 1/2 wall height. I mean covered. On these shelves, I would have all the books I ever read, all the text books I ever needed (and felt necessary to keep) and all the knick-knacks that I acquire through life. There would be jars of rocks from my trips to everywhere. Framed maps. Postcards. Things made by friends and family. It would be a display of memories and stories. Like Art.
In the end, these shelves would be in my home. A dream home that I also build in my head, that motivates me to keep pushing, to get out of bed, to step into the sun. Because, once, two years ago, this type of motivation did not exist and by my life it needed to exist. I’m pretty sure this goal of shelves saved my life. Which, really, is the underlying grace of dream goals.
I really like this a lot. :)
Communications Director for Human Rights Watch so I can finally use my MA in human rights where my passion lies and capitalize on the skill set I already have.
Conversely, I’d love to open a little bistro and just spend all my days making delicious sandwiches and breads and coffees and be my own boss, ’cause this workin’ for someone else crap is for the birds.
I would love to just say screw it all and open a little cafe/used bookstore, and it would be awesome. Except there’s just no money in that anymore.
Sigh.
We could each do it and then be one another’s only patron… business plan! I haz it?
How about we consolidate forces? I’ll make the desserts for your bistro and we can build a reading room attached.
I want to earn my PhD and get tenure somewhere. (I just applied to PhD programs, so this is potentially on the table.) I also want to run a full marathon (some days I want this more than others) and maybe a 50k. I’d like to do a non-sprint triathlon, too–like a longer one. Those are my current ones, I guess.
For a reason that is too lengthy to explain right now, I had to formulate some goals for this year, the next 5 years, and my life, last December. This year I said I wanted to find a job and move into my own apartment. Within 5 years I want to be working on my PhD and having made some serious headway on my dissertation. At the end of my career I’d like to have make a difference in students’ lives AND in scholarship, the latter preferably by being cited in some amazing anthology.
Dreams, I have them.
Also, aw, shucks.
I would love to publish a book of poetry and I would also really love to work for SEICUS (Sexuality Information and Education Council of the US) or the Guttmacher Institute. They’re rarely hiring and it’s extremely competitive, but they do such fantastic, important work and I’d love to be a part of it.
Don’t laugh at me either… I would love to be Secretary of Education one day.
But I don’t know if I could leave the classroom…
No laughing! I secretly dream of winning an Oscar… for acting. I don’t act. I can’t act. I’m afraid of public speaking. It’s a thing.
It looks like I misread… I was doing the “pie-in-the-sky dreams” and not the “lifetime goals that you know you only have a small chance of achieving but you hold onto anyway.”
I guess I don’t really have one at the moment. :)