I like goals. So I came into adulthood at basically the perfect time for me, parallel to the self-optimization/self-improvement/self-help era. Everyone is looking for the next book to read, the next podcast to listen to, the next journal or app or program to improve their time management or character or leadership skills and I was right there in the middle of the search. Goals are great; they combine so many of my loves, from list-making to list-checking-off to reading and learning to that really good feeling of humble bragging to your friends (we all do it, don’t even start with me).
I’ve been a goal machine since high school, tallying up hours spent studying, checking off the books I read or miles I ran, stacking up my achievements and living inside them like armor, like an igloo, like a home. I didn’t meet all of my goals (200 lb back squat, I’m looking at you), but there’s something innately satisfying about putting something onto paper and then working towards building it into reality.
In April, I moved across the country from Chapel Hill, North Carolina to San Francisco, California to start a new job, a fell-out-of-the-sky-and-into-my-lap kind of job that didn’t give me the time to plan and prepare like I normally do. I left most of my belongings in a closet in my parent’s house or at Goodwill, taking only one suitcase of clothes and shoes, a few boxes of books, my yoga mat, my laptop. I sat in my new apartment and looked at the empty space, wondering what to fill it with. From the top of my San Francisco hill I looked out and wondered what to take in first. My brain went into over-drive, visions of who I would be and what I would do and all of my new goals, my hands twitching for the Notes stored in my phone, for a pen and paper, for anything.
But then there was the craziness of moving, the unpacking of boxes, the meeting new people, the figuring out which bus to catch, and what time, and when. So I never got around to writing those goals down, and eventually I honestly just forgot about them. I just lived.
I will never be an advocate of a goal-less existence, but I can tell you that it is now almost June and I haven’t crossed anything off of a checklist. I haven’t PR’d or reached a new personal best. I haven’t seen my name published in an article or stenciled across an award. I haven’t really stood out at all.
But here’s what I have been doing; I’ve been going on walks, and sitting in parks. I’ve been drinking coffee and reading fiction. I’ve been eating lots of fruit and yogurt and ok yes, ice cream. I’ve been enjoying my new bed and my new sheets and going to bed by nine.
I’ve also been learning how to code (sort of). I’ve been writing a novel, sentence by sentence every night on the train. I’ve been the first at the office and the last to leave. I’ve spent entire nights in the city from sun down to sun up. I’ve been holding handstands. I’ve been trying and sometimes not failing at cooking dinner for myself.
And it’s been really fucking lovely.
Sometimes even the things we love can start to feel like work. Sometimes a life lived under the constant scrutiny of social media and the self-improvement era can leave us feeling constantly inadequate. Sometimes what we need most is just do, anything, whatever we’re curious about, for no reason at all.
I’ll get back to my lists and my pursuits and my hustle eventually. But for now I think I’ll just live, for a little while longer, and know that everything will be waiting for me when I get back.
