I'm realizing more and more that most people, myself included, seem to live most of their lives completely backwards. So much time and effort is put towards achieving goals that haven't really been defined, or are vague enough that they shouldn't even be referred to as "goals".

Define your goals

If you don't know what you want, or what you're working towards, you'll never get there. You have to figure out where you want to be rather than trying to figure out what to do to chase down the ellusive goal of happiness or contentment. It's only once you have the goal in mind that you can start taking steps to get there.

Without knowing your goals, it's like you're running in a race where you can't see any of the other runners, and you have no idea where the goal is – for all you know, you could have reached the end of the race a long time ago, but you had no idea that that was where you wanted to stop.

Be realistic

Setting goals like "I want to be an olympic swimmer by the end of the month" just doesn't work. Even attempting something that's unrealistic will just leave you frustrated and deter you in the future. Know yourself, know your strengths.

Know your limits

It's important to know your strengths and utilize them, taking advantage of anything you have that may get you ahead. But even more important is to realize your limits – and not accept them. If something is going to hold you back from your goal, that something needs to be overcome.

Don't give up

Life is really good (really really really good) at throwing you curveballs when you least need or expect them. Don't let these cause you to lose sight of the ultimate goal. Each hardship just makes you appreciate everything that much more when you finally get where you're going.

Don't forget about the others…

Everyone else is (more or less) in the same position as you. Don't knock other people down to get ahead. Destroying other people's goals will just make reaching yours seem less fulfilling and leave you feeling like you're missing something. Treat people the way you want them to treat you. If you treat people like crap, or crush them physically/financially/emotionally – it will come back to haunt you.

It's been nearly a year since I moved to my new apartment, and moving day is just a few weeks away. I've been doing a lot of reflecting lately, and I'm less than pleased with the last 11 months. I've made some stupid decisions, some mistakes that I wish I could undo, and for the most part my situation has remained unchanged. I have come to terms with a few more things that have been eating away at my happiness for most of my life though, and that feels like a pretty big accomplishment.

If I could go back and do anything differently though, I don't think I would. I mean, there are definitely things that I regret, but to undo any of those would put me in a different place than I am right now.. and I'm really digging my current situation. Beautiful girl that loves me almost as much as I love her – got it. Decent, albeit boring and sometimes ridiculous, job – got it. Possibility of moving to Australia or some other awesome place with the before mentioned girl (I don't really care where, as long as I'm not chased by pitchforks.. and it's with the girl) – got it. A blog where I can keep referring to Faith as the "beautiful girl" and no one can do anything about it – got it.

I may not be living an exciting life right now, but I've found my happiness.

Oh yeah, and sometimes I sing. And people seem to think that I don't suck.

Yep, somehow I've managed to survive another year.

Just once though, I'd like to have a birthday when I wasn't sick or feeling like the world was falling apart. This year isn't that bad.. still congested and achy and with a few more worries than I'd like, but nothing terribly wrong.

I have to be optimistic, otherwise I risk bringing down myself and the people that I care about.

So how bout it? Let's all work towards making the next 365 days the best we can for everyone. That's what I want for my birthday – for you to enjoy your life.

I really don't want to imagine "President McCain"… please make this nightmare go away!

Anyway, the last few days have been quite interesting – here's a "quick" rundown.

Wednesday

• "Helped" Kelly pack
• Slept

Thursday

• More packing
• Waited for the movers (were supposed to be there 10-11ish.. showed up at 2)
• Rode along to Chicago in rush hour traffic
• Got to hold an iPass up the the windshield
• Got stranded at a Walgreens in Chicago when Kelly's car decided to stop cooperating
• Geico was helpful and found a repair place to take the car to and called a tow truck
• An hour later Kelly had to call back about the tow truck
• 10 minutes later the truck showed up
• Rode around Chicago in a tow truck
• Heard stories about how great it is to be a tow truck driver
• Got to the repair place and their was no overnight lot.
• I had to parallel park a car in Chicago (I can't parallel park very well, but Kelly was watching, so I had to do it, and do it well)
• The car was running fine by this point, so after eating and booking a hotel room I drove around in Chicago for the first time in.. ever. (I tried to pretend I was a taxi.. I need more practice at it, but I'm off to a good start)
• Walked around, took pictures, saw the building where spudart work
• Drank
• Slept

Friday

• Met the movers and got things moved in
• Drove to Wisconsin Rapids
• Slept

Saturday

• Ate breakfast with Kelly's family
• Drove to Stoughton and introduced Kelly to my family people
• Kelly pet a chicken.. and a pig.. and dogs.. and horses
• Kelly watched me get choked by a cat, and cause the corgi to run around in circles while growling with a toy in his mouth
• Drove back to Fort and ate
• Drove to Whitewater and drank
• Slept

Sunday

• Drove through more crappy weather to drop Kelly off at the train in Harvard
• Had flashback of really old movies
• Tried not to cry
• Drove back to Whitewater and did absolutely nothing
• Slept

So.. things have been busy. Stressful. It would have been nice if things had gone more smoothly, but I wouldn't trade it in for anything.

Assign point values to random and trivial things that you do throughout the day. Try to get others to compete, knowing that they'll probably turn you down – this is ok. They're still in the game even if they refuse, they just lose at the end of the day because they have no points. If this is the case, make sure to inform them at the end of the day that they've lost.

I have 380 points so far.

Waking up: 50

Getting dressed: 10

Remembering that I don't work today before getting ready: 20

Standing in my garage and waving goodbye when it's 17 degrees outside: 300

Have you ever stopped to think about how, at this exact moment, you are closer to the end of everything than you ever have been?

This may seem rather trivial, almost not worth mentioning, definitely not worth an entire post: I cut my hair. I woke up with an urge, no, a "calling" of sorts to finally chop the stuff off. Normally I would second guess something like that, put some thought into it, but as soon as it entered my mind I knew that it was right and that it was just something that I was going to do. So it was done.

Why is this significant? I think part of the reason that I grew my hair out to begin with was because of the overwhelming part of my personality that makes me feel like, at times, I should just hide. The hair was a mask, a veil, something that I could put between me and the world. Not so much physically, it bugged the living fuck out of me to constantly push it out of my face – but psychologically it was a barrier that I could use to escape.

I was not recognized today when I went into the coffee shop.

There are people in my life, people I've befriended, people that I work with, and people that I'm just casual acquaintances of that have never seen me with hair shorter than shoulder length. Tomorrow, at work, I know that it will become a topic of conversation.
"Hey, did you get your hair cut?" – yes, do you really need to ask?
"You got your hair cut." – ugh. thanks, I hadn't noticed.
"Nice haircut." – thank you 🙂

I'm tempted to just wear my hat all day, and put all of that off until the next time I decide to go into work – which happens to be Wednesday afternoon.. I love using up my vacation time. 🙂 BUT.. to do that would be to fall into the same traits that I've begun to shed, the reasons why I decided to shed the hair.

You should have seen the pile – It looked like someone swept up a small dog.

Yesterday I posted about my luck.. and since luck is such a subjective topic, I may have technically ended up posting about nothing. Maybe leprechauns.. who knows.

How about something much more tangible (in an intangible way), and less subject to possible wishful-thinking on my part: Deja vu. Lately my dreams have been toying with me, I'll wake up knowing that there's something important, something out of the ordinary that I *should* remember, but the harder I try the more elusive it seems to become. I've been noticing this same behavior from my brain while trying to remember things about my childhood, important things, things that I should be able to spit out without thinking are now hidden from me.

So what does this have to do with Deja vu? I'm starting to think that these dreams are almost premonitionary (not a word) in a way, because when I do seem to remember parts of them, it's an absolute Deja vu experience. Lately I've been having too many events happen, too many conversations where I know I've already experienced them, and in some cases can anticipate the exact next words spoken, and know how I responded before it's even my turn to respond.

Perhaps I'm just becoming schizophrenic.

Whatever it is, I welcome it into my life as well.