Reason Breeds Insanity

Well, this has truly never happened to me before, but I wrote my ideas for goals for 2024 less than a month ago, and I came here today to read them, and I find them to be absolute bull shit. Who was that December 2 woman? I will never reach those lofty goals. I barely want to read them through again, because they are so overwhelming. Why would I even try to do all that to myself!?

Maybe it’s because tomorrow’s date is one for the ages… won’t happen for what, another 100 years? Maybe the countdown (or count up) is what I need to give me a boost. No, what I need on 123123 is to scale back my own expectations for myself. I’ve always been a bit of a slacker, Gen X or no, because I was the person who would do just enough to get the A. Why get 100% when a 90% got you the same grade? An A is an A, and I wasn’t in line to get any great accolades for grades, like I certainly wasn’t valedictorian material or anything, nor would I have wanted to be. I quit my PhD, after passing my comps, because writing was overwhelming while simultaneously being less than stimulating.

On 123123, I want to refocus. Be more basic and not in the white girl at Starbucks kind of way. I want to simplify my expectations for myself and others. I find that my expectations are always loftier than anyone can reach. I need to learn to put aside what I think I want things to be and just appreciate what those things actually are. Being present in the moment makes it so much easier to feel joy.

So here are my goals for 2024:

• Love more: Give and receive more hugs. Tell people I love them.
• Be more honest and more vulnerable: Set better boundaries, tell people when they hurt me. Listen to people and believe what they tell me.
• Move more: I need to get back in the pool. I need to walk more. Maybe some of it will be rucking, because I do love that weighted feeling.
• Read and write more: Read some bible, read some books, and write sometimes.
• Eat less and savor more: Be conscious of what I put into my body.
• Be sober and be present more: Don’t do things that will hurt me, like drink alcohol.

This list is do able. There are no specifics. I am not hemmed in. And it fits who I want to be. I want to be present (sober, honest, vulnerable), loving and kind (hugs, reading, and writing), and physically well (eat less and move more). So, I plan to focus on things that matter to me, and the thing that will help me exist more fully in this world.

Presence.

Love and kindness.

Wellness.

More.

As usual, around this time of year, I am thinking about what is next, what’s coming up in this year. I have some goals—some are the same I’ve had, some are ones I’ve considerd in the past, and some are new—and plan to take a bit of space to think through them.

1. Get up at 5AM every day. Walk a mile with Luna. Read a Psalm and some Bible before meditating. 
2. Read (fiction) and write every day. Watch one (at most) TV show or movie each night. 
3. Ruck 30 minutes with some hills every evening. Eat good food and less of it. Make sure to have breakfast and lunch. Drink more water. 
4. Be sober. 
5. Start my podcast.

I have long had a desire to get up at the same time of day each morning. I’ve read a lot about how beneficial it is to wake up at a set time each day. I am going to go for 5AM, because then I can walk a mile with Luna and do my other morning things without the pressure of time. I don’t have to be at work until 8AM, so that gives me a full three hours of time to get myself acclimated to the day before I have to work. And it gives me 2.5 hours before I even have to be around other people. This large amount of time will also allow for time to read a Psalm and a couple of other chapters in the Bible each morning before I meditate for 10 minutes—I’d like to work up to 20 minutes each morning by 2025.

The next goal is one that has stumped me for years. I want to read some fiction or poetry every single day. I read a lot of nonfiction of all kinds, because it is my favorite, but I don’t read a lot of fiction, and maybe that is why I am not as creative as I’d like to be. Creativity is essential for the other half of this goal. I want to write every day. I am trying to decide if I want to write here, in a private file, or in a notebook each day. My eventual goal is to try to have some kind of memoir-like thing. In order to make this goal happen, I’ll have to watch fewer TV shows and movies, which is part of this goal.

Another goal is to ruck 30 minutes each day after school to wind down before I head home, which pairs with my goals of staying sober, eating breakfast and lunch, and drinking more water. On December 27, I will have been sober from alcohol for two years, and I’ve abstained from some other things for over a year, and some for less than that. I am proud of myself for improving my health in this way, and I think it’s safe now to add back in being vegan. My plan, this time, is to be vegan at home and most of the time when I go out, but if there isn’t something vegan, or if I am visiting someone, or if we go somewhere special, to be flexible and not be a pain in the ass about it, but also to not eat meat. I had been vegan for two years, then had a craving for wings and ate them, then it seemed like too much to ask myself to go back to being vegan, when I was already trying so hard not to drink alcohol. Rucking is a physical exercise that can help me get into better shape while also helping me experience nature, which I hold so dear. And, I am hoping that this exercise will also encourage me to eat better adn drink more water, both things I struggle with.

My biggest goal for 2024 is to start the podcast that I have been wanting to do for the past several years. I have narrowed my many ideas down to two, and I am trying to narrow it down to just one, based on the one that will bring me the most joy, and bring some good into the world. I am leaning toward interviewing ordinary people about ordinary things, choosing five questions to ask my interviewees, while also giving them the opportunity to ask me any question they want, on the spot, at the end of the show. My biggest worry was how expensive the equipment might be for this, but I listened to a podcast called “How to Start a Podcast” by BuzzSprout, and the equipment I’ll need is available for under $500. Some of it, I already own, so I won’t have to spend much at all. Now I just need to get going.

Once again, this prompt comes from Rachel Greig’s website. What is a place I love? I love so many different types of places, this one is hard to narrow down. Chicago is high on my list, as well as Inverness, but so is Washington Island, and even Fort Benjamin Harrison State Park and Pike Island, which is part of Fort Snelling State Park. I love them all for different reasons, because Chicago is my first big city love, Inverness is a big place that feels slow and personal, Washington Island is hopefully my future home, and the state parks, well, they stand in for all the places I feel close to nature.

If I have to choose one place to say is my most favorite place, I would have to say anywhere that I am with people around whom I can be utterly and totally myself. Whether that is in a huge city, like Chicago where I can get lot in the noise, bustle, and confusion, or whether it is in the woods on an island where I can distantly hear my heartbeat between the birds chirping and the waves crashing on the shore. I guess mostly what I want to talk about is my experiences in the places I love and the people with whom I have spent time there.

When my wife and I first started realizing we were interested in each other in more than a platonic way, we went to Chicago to see an art exhibit at the Chicago Art Institute. I remember being elated to feel warmth of her simply standing next to me as we looked at so many Van Goghs and so many Gaugins. When her arm would brush up against mine, I felt so comfortable and finally at home, a feeling that never has gone away through any ups or downs we may have had. I feel like calling it butterflies is cheesy, but when I think about her and this trip, I remember how new and beautiful our love was and it makes me feel nostalgic and at peace.

*

I guess, after not publishing this when I wrote it and when I look back at this several months later, I recognize that every place I list in the first paragraph is somewhere I love to be with my wife, so really she is my favorite place. There is no other place I’d rather be than with her, doing anything, wherever.

Recently I felt as if I was betrayed by a friend, and I got really in my feelings about it. I was moping and thinking about how much I wish I wasn’t a person who values other people, as in I want to be more like my brother and some of my other friends, who can just stop caring about a person when they have betrayed them enough times. One of my big triggers is feeling like I am someone’s last resort, and I have a friend who makes me feel that way a lot, so instead of getting upset, I turned to looking for ways to “not give away [my] emotional capital” as my therapist so smartly put it a couple of months ago.

Anyway, instead of just being upset at this person, I decided to vent a bit to two people, then I looked to find some articles about how to guard my heart. I found a great article called “Psychotherapist: 10 Ways to Stop Giving People Power Over You,” and while it isn’t the usual heady sort of thing I would usually seek out, the article did have some good information for me to consider. One of the things that resonated the most with me, being an enneagram four and also always seeking to live a consistent ethic, was this bit of advice: Live according to your values.

The part of the advice that seemed the most eye-opening to me was when Amy Morin wrote: “Identify the things that are most important to you, and live accordingly. [. . .] When you are confident in your priorities, other people’s judgments will matter less.” I don’t really know what else I want to say about this, because I wrote this several months ago, but what is here seems like solid enough advice to push the publish button on. Live according to your values.