Ruby in the Sky

As a true amateur blogger, I go through phases with my blog. I love it dearly, but I tend to over-invest for a while, put way too much pressure on myself (did someone say perfectionist?) and then drop it completely again. After almost 8 years, it has come to a point where I have trouble even starting because of previous expectations I have had for myself.

Despite all that, though, this little corner of the internet remains a fun space for me to go back to. I never delete anything, so this is like my own little time-machine. That time-machine is especially interesting when it comes to the expectations that my younger self had, that ironically drove me away in the first place. For example, I recently added a reading list page, which prompted me to also look at my Day Zero page. This is a project that I actually did write a few updates on over the years, but it’s safe to say at this point that my deadline has passed: the official end date was July 25th 2017. As luck would have it (I don’t know if you believe in fate and all that, but this seems like a veeery freaky coincidence to me), if I had done another Day Zero project immediately after the first, it would have ended tomorrow.

Evidently, now is probably the perfect time to reflect on that list of mine. How much did I get done, even though I didn’t really think about this project anymore after my final ‘Ultra-update‘? What did I learn?

Actually, I got a surprising amount done when it comes to the big things. I travelled outside of Europe, alone, for over a month (which you can read about under the travel tag on my home page). I applied, got accepted and went to university – in fact, I’m currently in the process of writing my thesis and finishing that degree. I watched a lot of Marvel movies, and I’ve seen all the new Star Wars movies – although the original I-VI still remain on my watchlist. As demonstrated by my book list, I have read over 50 books, and depending on your definition of playing guitar I did learn!

The most important thing that stood out to me as I was going through this list, however, was the fact that so many of these things didn’t really matter to me. Not now, and to be quite honest, not then, either. A list of one hundred goals is a very large list, as demonstrated by the fact that I could not even think of one hundred things I might want to do. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It might have had to do with the time of my life – I was 15 when I started this project – but in general, 1000 days is a long time, and I expect that even in the upcoming 10 or 20 years, it would be impossible for me to predict what will happen, and what I will want to focus on. Nor should I: I am definitively in camp ‘go with the flow’, and I think there is no point in trying to predict the future or constantly relive the past.

Maybe the trick was just to make the goals smaller. Maybe it was to make the list shorter. But ultimately, I think we should all just stick with a smaller array of goals, ones we actually want to achieve. Quality over quantity, as they say: I believe this smaller range of goals will be far more meaningful than having a huge number of goals, just for the sake of it.

I suppose that was the moral of the story, the end of the rant. It felt good to get it out! I hope it might help you reflect on your own approach on goal-setting, and how you are pursuing your goals – there are many great articles out there that go more in depth on any aspect of this process you might need help with – we are not alone!

I hope you enjoyed this post, and I’ll talk to you again on January 14th, 2023 (1000 days from now).

Love, Ruby