by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)
What does 2020 hold…
Wait, let’s try this… Have you ever notices that if you say 2020 like this: twenty twenty, it sound just blah… but if you say it like this: two thousand twenty, it sounds much more futuristic? Cool huh? Ok, back to the story…
So, what does 2020 hold? Just another year, right? Work, work, work, repeat. Well, before I get into what I think I’d like to accomplish in the upcoming year, I’d like to just take a moment and be thankful.
On Being Pollyanna
We live in the twenty first century. This is an awesome place! Yes, there is still strife, famine, wars, poverty, etc but it is still a terrific age to live in. I am sure even people back in olden days thought life couldn’t get any better. Yes, we as a people are getting dangerously close to certain technological, biological precipices which could harm our species, but our advancement has been fantastic. I hope we can overcome the roadblocks we face but I am not going to give into the crap that we live in a horrible world pessimistic state. People cause this pessimism, specifically, people who feel the need to push their views on the masses. I refuse to give into that. As a people, our societal mores and manners will ebb and flow. We’ve let people talk about the right for someone to ‘abort’ a child AFTER it’s born… one day it will reverse itself and we will be talking about the preservation of life. Things will change this way and that, but hopefully the most extreme changes will not end the human race.
So cheer up!
I’m not getting into politics/religion/etc… I am just talking about the human condition to be optimistic about the present. As the Sherman brothers wrote for the revamp of Disney’s Carousel of Progress:
Now is the time.
Now is the best time.
Now is the best time of your life.
Life is a prize, live every minute.
Open your eyes and watch how you win it!
I may be a curmudgeon about a great many things, I am not a curmudgeon about my thankfulness of my life and this moment.
Now that your are cheered up, let’s move on! Please keep your hands, arms, feet, and legs inside the ride vehicle at all time… Permanezca sentado… las manos, brazos, pies, y piernas.
2020. What does that future hold for me (or any of us)?
1.) Things go as they did in 2019 (same old same old).
2.) Things go badly (illness, sadness, job issues, death, money issues, etc).
3.) Things go well (job, money, health, happiness)
I will just focus on #3. That’s what we should always be doing, right? I am talking about filtering out how to make 2020 go well, but we should probably be doing this exercise every day, huh?
As you could tell from my strangely optimistic rant above, things are going well this year. Sure, we all struggle with daily junk like the drudgery of work, piss-poor drivers on the road, not getting enough ‘me time’, not winning the lottery, etc but all in all, it’s a good time.
Disagree with me? I consider normal, hum-drum existence to be ‘doing well’. If you don’t…
CHANGE YOUR PERSPECTIVE.
For most of us a day without major bad things happening is ‘doing well’. We don’t have to be flying around the world, creating works of art, clubbing every night, forcing everyone to think as we do to consider things to be ‘going well’. THAT’S BEING THANKFUL and having POSITIVE OUTLOOK.
Sorry, I switched to rant mode again. You can be optimistic or you can be pessimistic, it’s up to you. You don’t have to agree with me. Your opinion on your outlook is yours. I am not the kind of person who feels you need to fit into my idea of a human being (I’m looking at you progressive PC crowd).
So, 2020. I want it to be good. I will be more than happy if it remains same old same old but I want to shoot for things going well.
The Goals
What I would like to happen in 2020 for myself. What I would consider the year to ‘go well’.
1.) I’d like for my kids to remain healthy overall and have little illness.
2.) I’d like for me and my wife to remain healthy (have little illness).
3.) I’d like to get healthier. aka, get off some of the meds I am on.
4.) I’d like to get a new job. this is a tricky one and has a lot of pitfalls that I will explain in a bit.
5.) I’d like to have a proper savings.
6.) I’d like to have a constant secondary income.
What do you know. I bet some of you have the EXACT same ideas. Nice. There are a few more ‘me-specific’ items I’d like to accomplish. Nothing crazy here and nothing that will be a disaster if I can’t do:
7.) I’d like to visit Disney parks 3 times in 2020.
8.) I’d like to visit Six Flags over Texas at least 5 times in 2020.
9.) I’d like to get 3 of me and Chris’ games published (self published).
10.) I’d like knock out a lot of my repairs to my house (there are a LOT).
11.) I’d like to ‘finish’ Season 2 of According To Whim (our public access, now on the net show).
12.) I’d like to film Season 3 of According To Whim (our public access, now on the net show).
Now that I have some goals. It’s time to break them down to ensure they get done. Some will require no real planning while some will take a lot. Join me next time as I break them down (which might help you too).