I am someone who lives and dies by lists. I have lists for everything-favorite things, things to do, places to see. My day begins and ends with lists. I think I’ve become so synonymous with lists that I might get credit for completing more of them than I actually do. Recently, specifically in the past three months, I’ve taken a harder look at my approach to lists, and the strange sort of false immortality that they instill in you, and why I have a new attitude toward completing them.
I suppose I should state that most of the lists I make are goal-based, rather than favorites ranked (though the latter does have its place quite often in my universe). The most common are longer-term goals such as viewing all of the American Film Institute movies or seeing all fifty states. These are relatively typical ones we might share. However, for me, some of these are goals that I have had for decades. Entertainment Weekly came out with a list of the “100 Greatest Movies” that I bought in 1999 that I’ve had ample time to complete in the years since, and I never have. For almost my entire twenties I rarely travelled other than to New York, despite half of my bucket list being travels. Same with the Modern Library list or the AFI Genre lists or books that I wanted to write. I’m a goal-driven person, so why are some of these 20+ year goals still ones I need to accomplish?
I think in part it’s due to a strange sort of immortality lists give us. The EW list (which is the filmic one I am most determined to complete this year, and indeed I do only have 11 films left on the thing so that’s more than achievable) is just always there. It’s an admirable goal, but it’s something “I’ll get to eventually.” We all do this-we all think “someday I’m going to visit that national park” or “I’ll definitely get around to that scrapbook soon,” but since it’s not there, it’s not being driven by some outside force that compels us to achieve, we just keep it on the list, with that bucket list getting further and further watered down until once incredible goals like seeing all fifty states become a haze, a mirage that probably can't be achieved. But we know “it’s going to happen” and as a result we have this sort of false immortality. The reason we have bucket lists is that we want to accomplish those things before we die; on a subconscious level, we assume that as long as those lists exist and are unfinished, we can’t die.
But the reality is that we’re going to die whether or not we complete those lists, and eventually time does feel like it speeds up. The amount of people I talk to who have the same goals as they did ten years ago, the same seemingly achievable dreams that continually stay at arm’s length, is mind-boggling to me, and I count myself among them. I am not on a pedestal looking down right now-I’m aware of the problems I face in the mirror in terms of not getting tasks totally within my reach done.
But I’m also taking a step I think people aren’t willing to take-I’m acknowledging my role in not achieving these dreams. Most people are unwilling or incapable of an introspection where they understand that they aren’t “that busy” or that they don’t “have enough time” to get something done. They hear a goal that you recently achieved, and instead of taking it as a sign that perhaps they want to go after it too, like they always have, they instead say “yep, that’s on my bucket list” but never get it off. Like someone who says “I’m a reader” but never actually reads or “I’m a writer” but never actually writes, they become “I’m an achiever” but never actually achieve the goals they keep telling themselves they will.
I have made great strides in 2019 to not be that person anymore. It may make me seem a bit rigid or Type A, but adopting a list process where I almost daily check in on what I’m supposed to do, breaking down goals into the most basic of blocks to eventually make me achieve has paid off results. I’m taking specific avenues in my life (cleaning, movie-watching, travel) and leaning in as hard as I can to get “caught up” or to a point where I can actually be tracking to complete a goal without feeling “behind.” I’m being careful to note whenever I complain about something, especially more than once, and realizing my role in that problem & fixing that, so that my life has more free time and is less focused on the negative. And it’s working-I’ve completed more movie-watching projects in the past few months than I have in years. I have read more books in the past few months than I did in all of 2018. I am just six states shy of having visited all fifty states, and I have done more writing that means something to me on this blog and in my creative life than I have in years. After a long trip and check out from my life, I am more excited right now to start fixing the remaining corners of my life and completing more long-term goals than I have been in a really long time. And I feel like that energy is resonating in being confident, determined, and real about the world around me, and the people around me. I am perhaps happier right now than I have been in a long time, and I’m hoping that happiness gets me through the last few goal “barriers” that I always trip on in the coming months as I strive to not only maintain, but start new goals that don't feel dusty.
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