Sara once wrote a clever little piece entitled 'Twenty-Five by Twenty-Five' or something along those lines. It presented the notion that one should compile a list of Twenty-Five Significant Things to Accomplish By the Time One is Twenty-Five , and documented Sara's attempts to produce such a list by the required deadline. I remember reading it, laughing over it, and determining to write my own list as a good mental exercise - one should set goals and all that, after all! But there was no rush. Twenty-Five (or 'Five-and-Twenty,' as my eighteen-year-old self liked to call it) was safely a long way off.
Now it suddenly dawned on me this weekend that I am actually Twenty-Five already, and I still have no list. How tempus fugits! However am I going to determine now if I've accomplished all the goals I (should have) set for myself all those years ago? How will I know if my life thus far has been wasted or well-spent?? At least, those are the questions my former self probably would have posed, casting up her hands in melodramatical despair. At this point in my life, my response is more along the lines of, 'Ooops.' And let's see if we can't come up with a list, really quick now:
Twenty-Five Significant Things to Accomplish By the Time I am Twenty-Five (In No Particular Order):
1) Buy a house
2) Get married
3) Have a baby
4) Quit my job
Ummm....
5) Learn how to spell 'Renaissance'
6) Wear contacts regularly
7) Develop a filing system for credit card bills and receipts
8) Burn candles
9) Look up and learn the words to 'On My Own' from Les Miz
10) Read The Importance of Being Earnest aloud to Michael
Oh boy...
11) Cut my hair
12) Schedule a dentist appointment
13) Paint my toenails
14) Fill my car with gas
15) Make the bed
16) Wash the dishes
17) Run the laundry
18) Change light bulb in office. How can I type in the dark??
19) Move pile of papers off desk. Grr. Need to clean office.
20) Clean office
21) Check email
22) Eat a muffin
23) Check email
24) Empty the trash
25) Contemplate Life
Whew, it looks like I'm ahead of the game and have successfully accomplished all the goals I set for myself earlier in life! What, it's cheating just because I knew when I wrote that list that I'd already completed it? Ah, but that's another trick about growing older: one loses one's ideals; one becomes cynical and pragmatic; one learns the devious shortcuts that make the world go 'round.
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2 comments:
I had five things I wanted to accomplish by 30. (I made the list at 20.) I accomplished them all by 25 which made me think I should set higher goals. My new list to be completed by 30 is not going so well, even when extended to 35. My 5 by 30 were:
Own my OWN car (21)
Be a nanny somewhere exciting (21 in Columbia, MD which I decided later was not exciting but I split for D.C. on my off-day.)
Graduate from college (25)
Live in Europe (England, 24)
Go to Ireland (24)
I've discarded the 30 list but I know "Own a home" was on there and I think "Live in New York City" was too. Oh well. I've accomplished a few things not on the list that are even better: Marry a fabulous man
Have a fabulous child
Have a childbirth story that sends shivers down the spine of men and young women
Honeymooned in Italy
Have lived so many places that "Where are you from?" stops me cold.-rlr
It's hard to set too ephemeral goals for oneself because perspective and priorities can change so much over the course of years. Your satisfactory accomplishment of five major goals simply demonstrates how mature and perceptive you must have been when you set them. =)
I remember reading how Emily (of New Moon) wrote herself a letter at 24 when she was 14. I admired the idea greatly and even wrote 1-year letters each birthday for the next couple of years (I was 11 at the time), but the notion of writing a letter and not reading it for 10 years was just too overwhelming to be attempted. Now, at 25, 35 seems a lot less far off.
~Rose
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