make the most of my 30s

When thinking over the past few days I realized that I’m doing a better job in my progress on this goal is it just taking a bit of a different form. This year I read Getting Things Done and I’m now in the process of reading Zen to Done which is pretty much a simplified version of GTD for people that find it too complicated. What it made me realize is that for practical purpose my use of 43T (including the “I gave up list”) is a mix of mid to long term goals which is also acting as my “someday/maybe list” which includes things like books that one wants to read. Things cycle through my 43T list as time goes on with a lot more things being completed than given up on and if they are given up on or deleted they are done so for good reasons like last year’s NaNoWriMo which I dropped out of when I was ahead of schedule to prevent from hurting my hands any more from too much time on the computer. So in many ways it seems like smart use of 43T is playing a lot more important role for this goal as a whole than I realized before.

I’m realizing that something is clearly wrong with how I’m living in the light of my values but I can’t really figure out what it is. Why does it seem like I not only have to resort to making lists of things that I enjoy as the things that I want to do, yet it too often seems like it becomes a chore that I keep on putting it off when it comes do the actual doing of them. One should be drawn to read the books by one’s favorite writers and aim to get them in whenever possible as compared to the trap of first picking up books and more books to collect and then finally getting around to making lists of the collections of books in my possession as my to read list. In many ways I am starting to realize that 43T and my more personal pocket notebook are the places where I keep on making these lists as if making the lists of things that I want to read, places that I want to go and books that I want to read is the main point in living a meaningful life as compared to actually doing them. Yet quite honestly if I actually focused more upon what I really wanted to do things would be going a lot faster on my 43T list. Sure I have been reading a lot of books this year from a new reading goal yet the pattern that I see is that I am reading a lot of books on minimalism, productivity and simplicity which are all about minimization the distraction overhead in life in order to be able to focus more upon what is most important. Yet getting over this struggle is likely the most important goal on my list as this is the key to making the most out of one’s 30s or any other decade or more importantly what everything else matters in the end as it all falls down to this as to if one lives a life that matters or if one ends up wasting their life.

Today I saw a sign up on the outside of a Pennsylvania Wine and Spirits State store that read: “Enjoy live, it comes with an expiration date.” So while for some people this might mean taking time to enjoy a glass of fine wine or a single malt Scottish on the rocks, although it was inspiration enough for pull out some of the gem of my puerh stash – a mid 1990’s traditionally stored puerh as any day that you are above the grass instead of below it is worth celebrating as an older man at my church always puts it.

While I know a lot of people talk about making a bucket list of life goals to help them think about what it is that is important for them to accomplish in life, to be quite honest it is something that I have mixed feelings about. As while one might finish their bucket list in their 30’s to 40’s or they might barely make a dent in it by their 80’s depending upon how long and involved the goals are on the list – neither of which would be a good thing in my opinion. So instead I got the idea of working on a “30’s bucket list” or simply 30 goals to complete during my 30’s. Not sure what exactly to put on it yet, just that I want it to be mostly meaningful (fun goals are fine too and a must for some of them) but also be doable within reason. Of course given that circumstances and values change and develop as time goes on the list will be open for revision as time goes on. Since after all its real purpose would not be a checklist but of a way of self accountability to keep myself on track for a decade of my life to live for what really matters.

I found out yesterday that a friend who I went to seminary with died in his sleep a few days ago of natural causes. He started seminary 2 years after I did and was 29 at the time of his death. How sad that he spent the last years of his life attending seminary to prepare for ministry to graduate with a masters of divinity only to die before becoming ordained and working as a pastor. Which makes this goal all the more important to me as he did not even reach his 30’s let alone be able to make the most of them.

While it is a lot easier said than done I believe that the key to completing this goal boils down to 2 big things which I am heavilly focusing upon now.

1. To know my true values and what is really important to me in the end
2. To stand firm and live by my values and not get distracted by everything else that tries to draw me away from what is most important in the end

The start of my fourth decade in the world. Looking back while I can see a lot of growth and learning that occurred during my teens and twenties, I greatly hope to accomplish more this decade than I did during the previous two, otherwise I would sadly feel like I am in really big danger of wasting my life.