29

Today I enter the final year of my twenties, turning 29 years of age. The last few weeks I've been reflecting on how to get my shit together, and the prospect seems overwhelming. Money currently ain't a thang, but I have no plan for 5, 10, 20 years from now. My hobbies revolve solely around a computer, and the only thing I know how to cook is spaghetti. I lead a disorganized life in a small apartment, something I feel condemned to continue. Other issues nettle, like health (much improved due to floorball and dragon boat) and sleep schedule (closely related to my so-called diet), so over the coming weeks and months I'm doing a complete assessment of my life as I live it presently and coming up with at least the outlines of the next 30 years.

Where do I want to be? What do I want to do? What should I do? Whom do I want to spend my time with? What's that goddamn beeping noise? These questions and more I'll be asking myself. And my friends, annoying them surely. Some of them have it together in my view, so I'm not about to let this social network I've developed over the years go to waste. But first lunch (you guessed it, left-over spaghetti), then off to buy a new notebook to make it seem like I'm starting over. Because that's what it feels like.

Comments

Heya, happy birthday. I managed to go all of my 25th birthday yesterday without saying a single spoken word. Nobody phoned me either. (Marissa is away).

I've had days like that, pre-girlfriend and pre-Bryght. I began to worry, because I kept reading articles about the average number of words people say in a day (thousands) and realized I said at most 30 or 40, often just to people at shops when I bought things. Thinking of the Douglas Adams quote (If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, [Ford Prefect] thought, their mouths probably seize up.), while humourous, didn't help much either. This birthday I spent most of the day with Karen, so worrying about not talking was not an issue!

Hey Happy Birthday Big Guy! Reading your post I thought "how very Icelandic" ;-) An outline for the next 30 years ? Seriously? part of the fun is not knowing what the plan is! if I look back over the last two years since arriving in Canada, I'm spending my time with different people, living my life in a different way and feel very very different about lots of different things! Maybe I'm just different ;-) ... and that is 24 months not 30 years! Seriously though, I don't buy all this long term planning. Having an RSP makes sense and having your dreams are important. However, I would caution against too much introspection. Nothing wrong with having some goals, but as my late and much missed Mother-in-Law always said: "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans!"

I think the best advice is a mixture of both approaches. Do the amount of planning that keeps all your i's dotted and t's crossed, but be open to having things sail out of the blue and running with it.

Stewart: I want at the very least to see into the future a little bit, so that I can make the necessary financial, time and effort sacrifices to achieve that future. If it means ruling things out, then so be it. At least I'll have made the decision, but I'd like to say to myself "I wonder if I could do [x]" or "when I'm 40 I'd like to have done [x]" and then plan a path to get there. The idea is to have something, rather than the current nothing.