Oh, itโ€™s just a list

In July 2012, I decided to take on the Day Zero challenge, and managed to share a (partial) list of 56 tasks (should be 101) to be completed in 1001 days. If you’re curious as to what tasks made it to the list, check this 101 in 1001 post. I will be updating that to reflect which ones I already got to do.

The list is almost six years old now and it’s more than double the 1001-day timeline originally set to accomplish all the tasks. Today I look back at the list and realize that based on what made it to the list, there are some things that changed, while some remain the same. And that’s how life goes, right?

Going through the list feels so much like #ThrowbackThursday. It reminds me of how things were, back then:

  • I was missing baking, and was still dreaming of a full-time home based baking business.
  • I was still very much into digital scrapbooking. Although truth be told, I was more of a hoarder of supplies and a stalker of galleries and wasn’t doing much actual scrapbooking.
  • We loved photography. I guess we still do, even if we don’t use big cameras anymore and just use our phones, even on vacation. But now, I want a new camera (or a better camera phone)! ๐Ÿ™‚
  • Sewing and quilting is something I was interested in, and still am.
  • Crochet didn’t make it on this list ๐Ÿ™
  • Reading is LIFE. My pile of books keep getting higher and the to-be-read list just keeps getting longer and longer.

Then I felt worried. Doesn’t my list seem filled with trivialities? Was it reflective of the life I was crafting?

Yes, and Maybe.

Yes, at first one might think the tasks are trivial and so simple. But that’s the nature of the challenge – to be simple and clear enough that you can actually do them. So that’s not such a bad thing.

But does it show what kind of life I was creating? Maybe. I think at the core are all those things I want to have in my life. But I probably didn’t approach list-making from that perspective. I didn’t start with – what kind of life do I want and what do I do to get that? I just made a list.

The Good Life

Essentially, we all want a good life. But our definition of a good life might not all be the same. What is that for me? In all the busy-ness of life, am I still making sure that the steps I take are leading me to that life? Is the way I am living right now already part of that life? Because it should. The good life should not be a faraway concept. Not something to envision only for our future selves. We deserve it now.

Of course, oftentimes we find ourselves in a place we never would have wanted to be in. Things don’t always go as planned, or wrong decisions were made. Rather than staying stuck, we must take consistent action aimed at breaking away from those situations. Easier said than done. I’m not in a very bad place – just not exactly where I always thought I would be (even that keeps changing) – yet I’m still not very consistent at taking action. What more if one was in a terrible situation?

Wow. I did not see that thought bubble coming up when I started this post. But I’m pretty glad I went there.

10 of 100