Learning Part Two

I should probably be doing other stuff with my time other than blogging.  Is this helping me move forward or not?

I do want to capture my thoughts from talking to Amy yesterday.  Amy is a very driven girl.  She has a business and a non-profit to run as well as an acting career.  She said she has masculine 'yang' energy and goes after what she wants.  (Otherwise she's very feminine, caring.  Her mission in life is to 'spread joy')

I asked her if she had a bucket list (things to do before you die).  She said she called it a 'life list' instead, and some items on the list have no definite state of completion so they're hard to cross off the list (learn to recognize more pieces of classical music, for example)  She's being keeping this list since the age of 15 and rewrites it every year.  Some things get rolled over year to year and aren't really goals that mean as much to her anymore.

She asked if I had one.  I said no.  I had thought about doing one, and looked at bucketlist.org to see what other people put on theirs.  I got discouraged because it seemed the majority of goals weren't achievements, but things you could get with money.  Go to this destination or that destination, own this thing, meet this person.... I suppose meeting a famous person takes some luck and determination, but how does it really make your life better?

I know what I want to achieve in my life but they're all on-going processes- do work that's meaningful, experiment with my art, have a long term relationship, have good relationships with friends and family, have a garden, live simply, be involved in the community, practice lifelong learning.

I told Amy some goals I'd had in the past- win an Oscar for best animated short and have a cartoon published in the New Yorker.  The New Yorker would be pretty cool, but I'm not sure achieving it would make me happy.  I'd have to enjoy the process of reaching the goal as well.  At the moment, changing the world is more meaningful to me than any individual achievement.  But maybe I'm just telling myself that so I don't feel bad if I fail.  I'm not exactly changing the world right now either!

I'd also really like to see a blue whale (or fin or sperm whale) just because I feel that would be a beautiful moment.  Finish reading A Remembrance of Things Past?  I got through three books... I don't really want to travel (in the conventional way at least) because I believe planes are bad for the environment.

I have been thinking about it, and my goals are shrinking.  All I want is a job, to move out, and to be in love.  Heavy emphasis on the love one.  Sometimes I feel everything else is meaningless.  Could I be more successful with someone to support me?  I should be able to do it alone and then I'll attract the right person....maybe?  

Until I reach these basic milestones, I can't look much farther ahead...  Maybe I should aim higher and I'll reach them on the journey.

I just went to the library and stood in the aisle of self-help books.  (I didn't know I'd ever be seeking out self-help books)  How to live, how to love, how to thrive, how to be happy.  There were shelves of titles.  It made me feel better.  Lots of people out there are trying to figure out how to live, just as I am.