In 6th grade, I was given an assignment to set six goals for my life. One had to be immediate and each subsequent one had to go further into the future. I remember a few of those goals and most make me laugh now. But that exercise, and some sage advice from a counselor I saw in high school, taught me something important: how to look toward where I want to be and figure out what decisions I need to make in order to get there.
Nine years ago, on May 14, 2000, I was spending time between the last day of school and a college leadership program with my grandparents at my family’s cottage near Cape Cod. During that week, I spent a lot of time by myself – something I wasn’t necessarily all that used to given that Scoot and I had all but one class together and spent nearly every second of the day with one another. During that time, nearly a year into our engagement, I thought a lot about what I wanted to do with my life. I decided to write down my life goals and share them with Scoot.
D’s godmother (who was Scoot’s mentor while he was growing up) often tells us, “Don’t tell me what you value. Tell me how you live your life and I’ll tell you what you value.” I hope these goals, and my/our progress towards them, are a view into how I live my life and what I value.
My Life Goals
(in no particular order)
May 14, 2000
(annotated May 14, 2009)
1. Marry Scoot.
check…eight years this summer
2. Send our children to an academically rigorous Catholic school (at least high school if not junior high and elementary).
hmmm…not sure this one is still gonna happen (see number four).
3. Own a house.
check and check.
4. Settle in one place from the time our first child begins kindergarten until the time our last child graduates from high school.
Last May, we moved to our dream home…a newly constructed home with plenty of room to grow in a great school district, hence the not being sure we’re going to need private school for our kids. Obviously it’s much too soon to know if we will move before B (or another child if we feel the urge to procreate again) finishes high school, but we’re at least making progress toward this goal, as D starts kindergarten this fall.
5. Fund our children’s college education regardless of what schools they want to go to.
Well, it ain’t out of the picture, but have you seen how much college costs?
6. Own a summer/vacation home.
A girl can dream, can’t she?
7. Vacation with our family at least once a year.
I haven’t looked at a calendar, but we’ve been on trips more than once a year. Sometimes those trips were to visit family (which isn’t always a “vacation” in the tropical beach sense), but they’ve all been a great time to get away from everyday life and spend time together as a family.
8. Raise our children in a church they feel a part of.
Thus far this has not been accomplished, but we do pray with our kids multiple times per day. D had a great time visiting Sunday School, something he’s now done twice, so we told him that we’d try to find a Sunday School near our house that he can go to. I’m hoping we can try that out this weekend or next.
9. Live to our 70th wedding anniversary.
I admit, I have little control over this one but so far, so good.
10. Grocery shop together.
Check. Almost every trip is one we take together. This is something I picked up from my friends’ parents. They did everything together and I thought it was the coolest thing in the world (still do). There was something so gratifying about seeing a middle-aged couple with three teenage girls still enjoying each other’s company so much that they spend time together dropping their kids off at the movies and heading out to the grocery store. They not only had a partnership but they had a friendship and that’s something I have always wanted to have with Scoot.
11. Run a marathon or other long run to raise money and/or awareness for a significant cause.
Not accomplished yet, but this is definitely still a possibility. I realize the sooner the better since I’m not getting any younger. But I don’t like running long distances so I figured I’d start slow. I’ll be running a 5K on the 4th of July, thanks to the inspiration of my fellow Shredheads.
12. Write a book.
Partially accomplished. I co-authored a ghost-written book (yes, it’s for sale on Amazon) with my mother-in-law that we self-published but I was more of an editor than an original writer. I still think I’d like to write a book some day but I really don’t know what kind or the subject.
13. Read the Bible from cover to cover.
Not done yet but I’ve gotten through quite a bit of it. In 2005 my New Year’s Resolution was to read 52 books in 52 weeks. When I accomplished it, I decided that the following year would be the year that I got through the Bible. And then I got pregnant and tired and busy and I moved and got a new job and the whole spending time every day reading thing didn’t really happen. But this can and will be accomplished. Oh, and when I say cover to cover, I mean all of the begats too. Thankfully I’ve already gotten through those.
14. Document my life so at any point Scoot and/our my family know who I am and what I stand for.
I’ve never been a journal-keeper so I struggled for a while with how I was going to do this. Combine this goal with goal number 12, perhaps? But, alas, the internets intervened and here I am, blogging about who I am and what I stand for. Yay for technology! Now, I guess it’d be good if I backed this all up so I can actually share it with my kids some day.
So that’s it. My life goals. I can’t really think of any that I’d add right now, in part because these aren’t all accomplished yet and in part because I think these still reflect my life goals. What about you? Do you document your life goals? Which ones have you already accomplished? Which ones do you still hope to achieve?
