Ellie got me two new books on how to build a successful life and how to prepare and plan your present to make your future better. That coincided with a talk from Captain Awesome on how perfect his year had been and how he'd worked and planned to make it that way.
Ellie means well; she really does. She's just looking out for me, I know. If I think it's confusing being me, it has to be that much worse to be watching and not knowing what all I am doing. She just sees the Buy More and Morgan and has very logical and reasonable doubts about my life's direction.
I have those questions and issues, too. So I guess maybe the life-help books are what I need. Reading them hasn't really provided a lot of new insight. I mean, if you've read one or two of those kinds of books, extrapolating out to what they all say is pretty straightforward. One thing that did pique my interest, though, was the statement "You can't plan to get where you're going if you don't know where you want to be."
That's made me ask myself, where do I want to be in five years? What are the 3 – 5 things I would like to have accomplished or life situations I would like to see myself surrounded with? I've been thinking about that most of the day. I have a few answers. First, I would like to be in a serious romantic relationship. Second, I want to have found a good career. Third, I want to sleep soundly and peacefully at night. If those three things are in order, I think the rest will fill in nicely.
The relationship doesn't have to be too far developed necessarily. It doesn't have to be engagement or marriage. But it does have to be real – with someone I can trust and believe. The relationship has to have a future, or, at least, the reasonable and realistic expectation of a future. I'm not expecting the perfect relationship or no difficulties – I just want real.
The Buy More is not a career. I'm not sure even being manager at the Buy More would fulfill my definition of a vocation. Work will never be something that completely consumes my life, like it does for so many. But it should be fulfilling, pay the bills, and, well, since I live in California, it should change the world for the better.
Sleeping at night was something I used to always take for granted. I used to always fall asleep the instant I lay down and didn't wake up until the alarm disturbed me. I had the occasional nightmare, of course, but sleeping was straightforward. Things got harder when the intersect came along. Since a couple nights ago, though, and the horror I witnessed firsthand, it's been really difficult. I've started coming to grips with it, but it's not easy. That's not something I feel like I can do every day. I can't do that and consider myself a success.
That's three goals. They don't fit the standard definitions of course. But one of the most-frequently stressed points in both books is that every person defines success differently. That's OK and encouraged. If I mold myself to someone else's definition of success, I'm just a dressed-up failure. I do deserve to be a success. I want to be a success.
The next step is to discover my obstacles and work on solutions to those obstacles. I'll think about that tomorrow.