Six Goals

I think instead of making New Year's resolutions, which I was never inclined to do aside from a couple of idealistic years in high school, it's time for me to set some specific goals. If I'm going to become a better person, I need to be intentional about it, it's not just going to happen by me coasting into it. I don't want to be the same person in 5 years that I am now. I want to be better. I know January is halfway over, but 50 weeks is still pretty good. So I'm thinking to myself what are some goals in different areas of life that I could set that would be challenging, but attainable and would show some real personal growth...

Before I get into these, I'm thinking I should take a minute and figure out what areas of life could use goals. I can boil this down into six categories of life and I feel as though each one needs a goal. I was going to make just five, but that's just not enough in this case.

The first thing that comes to mind is finances. Finances have always been a little bit intimidating for me. I have seen so many money issues in my family and I would like to take control of it instead of it controlling me. So that is a definite part of my life to target.

As far as my career goes, it's hard for me to isolate anything besides general improvement. I'm not getting promoted, I don't expect to get much of a raise. More than anything, I want to earn the trust and respect of my colleagues.

My physical life is doing pretty well. I'm in pretty decent shape, I've even dropped a few pounds in the last few months. But I can be better. I would like to lose a few inches off my waist line. My food habits have been a little hard to change, and that's probably the first thing that I need to do in order to make that happen.

As far as mental goals are concerned, the challenge is coming up with something that's definitive and measurable. I could very easily say practice more positive self talk and not be so critical of myself. But as tough as I am on myself, that's never going to work. I want to come up with something different.

In terms of my spiritual life, I've kind of been coasting for a while. Yes I go to church, yes I volunteer, yes I'm in a community group, and I've even started giving a little money regularly! That took years to start. But I don't do a whole lot for myself. I certainly have my standards and my values, but I have slacked sorely on my devotion time and Bible reading. If I'm going to become more like the man God wants me to become, then I need to make time with him a priority again.

My social life is a tricky deal. I have neglected it over the last 6 months or so due to work reasons. Seems like most of my human interactions are either at work or on social media, definitely not the best way to go. So this is something that I can look to improve on.

With all those thoughts in mind, these are the six goals that I will focus on accomplishing between today and December 31, 2019, in other words, before I see 2020...

1. Financial
Pay off my final student loan

I have a shade under $5,000 to pay off from my Master's. With that sneaky interest amount always going up, it's pretty much right at $5,000 though! In 2015, I agreed to a 10 year repayment plan. It's about three years gone by now and I've paid about half of it off, so I'm already ahead of my minimum payment requirements by about 18 months. But I want to get even more aggressive. I want it paid off in less than one year. Now I've already paid $400 in January and plan to pay another $100 at the end of the month. So looking at the next 11 months, that's going to take $450 per month through December. Once that is done, I will be debt free.

On a side note, I've been living on a budget since last October. It's been a great thing for me and I plan to continue doing so for as long as I'm alive.

2. Career

Develop myself in this job where I am a valued member of the team and I gain increased responsibilities.

I can't make this about a raise or a promotion. I've been in this job for 6 and a half months. But it's only been in the last 3 months that I really started growing and coming into my own. I have good days and I have days when I'm scared, even when I shouldn't have to be. It's like I am now responsible for events that took place before I started here and that's a little daunting.

3. Physical
Reduce my waist to 30 inches

What I really want to say is I can see my six pack again. And this seems so far away. I have not seen it since I was in first or second grade. That's 30 years. I'm an Italian boy, I love my bread, what can I say. But I want to be able to go to the beach or pool and not have to suck in my gut. I know 33 inches isn't horrible, but it can be better. I just downloaded an app for a 30 day ab workout. While I'm sure it can help, it won't matter if I don't eat a proper diet.

Also, I have signed up to run two races on back-to-back days for the first time in my life. In downtown Norfolk in November, I will be running a 5K and then a 10K with just a 24 hour break in between.

4. Mental
Quit swearing to myself

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this will be the toughest one of all. I don't know if I'm ready to say I will quit swearing completely. But it's the idea of getting angry at myself. And it's not enough to just substitute different words. No, it's about the thoughts, the self-image. That's what has to be better. What does that mean? Not beating myself up for the mistakes I make. And when trouble comes, not acting like my independence is being snatched from me. And also not being angry at God when things are not going how they should.

This one is about perspective about how I see me and how I see God and how I see the world. Admittedly, I don't have a lot faith in the goodness of people.

5. Spiritual

Complete a 1 year a Bible reading plan and record what convicts me

Bible reading is exactly what I need to start doing. Yes, I want to commit more scripture to memory. I pretty much have four verses memorized right now. Now I admit I missed the whole month of January. So I'll start it in February and go through January 1.

6. Social
Make 5 new local friends

Now when I say this, the word "local" is vital. I am leaving out social media connections. Those are too easy to fall back on and while I have made many friends through them, it has become a crutch and I don't really want more computer-based friends. I'm talking about making friends that I can go out and do things with. They have me over to their place, I can have them over to mine.

Race and prejudice

I was really looking forward to Sunday. Working out, church, some time relaxing in downtown Norfolk, then ice skating at the Scope, followed by a holiday party with the crew from Tucano's at a bowling alley.

So I ran my 5 miles, and I made a pineapple cucumber lime protein smoothie which was really great. I go out to my car and the door is cracked open. And my day pretty much shattered at that point. Someone broke into my car and stole $100 worth of gift cards. Most of those had come from my mother. There was still $30 to Target, $25 to a movie theater, $20 to Outback, and about $30 left for Kojl's. All gone. Because a couple of low life thiefs.  At the end of the day, I'm lucky that other things in the car were not stolen such as my winter hat and gloves, or any charging cords. I know a $100 is not the biggest deal in the world, but it reinforces my opinion of how self serving most people are by nature.

But here's what scared me. My instinct was the thieves were thuggish black people who live in a nearby building. I had no proof. I had no evidence. It was just my first thought.

I had to face an ugly truth. I have prejudice in me.  And I'm facing that reality on Martin Luther King weekend. Now I have no issue with people of other races as long as they act with respect and dignity. But I'm not going to automatically dislike somebody because they're of a different skin color or nationality. Where I live, it's much more racially mixed then other places I have lived. And I like being around people of different races, it opened my eyes up to different perspectives on the world and on life. But I just don't have any time or interest in associating with people who say things and do things that are disrespectful, harmful, and ignorant. More specifically, people who use specific slurs. In my eyes, respect is not assumed. Rather, you earn respect in how you treat others and how you treat yourself. And when I hear the N word flying in the workplace, to me it's just immature and ignorant. I don't want be around people who do that.

So what do I do going forward? I think one truth that I have to face is that I'm not going to click with everybody I meet and that's OK. Some will have different ways of speaking different ways of living and different kinds of communicating that I may just not be compatible in terms of being their friend. But I can look deeper than the way they speak or dress and maybe find out who they are on a little bit deeper level. If I want to be better at connecting with different kinds of people, I need to make the 1st move and show them that I am intrested in their story and who they are and how they think and feel. So maybe I can make a better effort at that.

Come to think of it, we have that work party tonight, and a lot of people who work at Tucanos are very different than me. Maybe tonight is an opportunity; of course, the AFC championship game is tonight, so if the Chiefs win, then I will be much more likely to be able to do that.I don't know if I'm strong enough to overcome Satan winning another AFC title.

Welcome to 2019

This is my 1st post of the New Year. It's 12:30 on a Saturday night. Well now I guess it's Sunday morning. But at what time does Saturday night really turn into Sunday morning? Technically I guess it would be midnight, but I really don't know if that's the case. Maybe about 2 or 3:00 a.m. depending on your lifestyle.

I really hope and pray for my mother that she makes a decision on where she wants to go. I really want her to leave Chicago and find a place where she will be happy. She has so many opportunities and options in front of her and she just needs to start putting one foot in front of the other. She has two pensions, she has social security, she has tour season coming up, but still, she's alone. And as spontaneous as she is, it amazes me how much she is procrastinating making a decision. It's one of those things where if she puts it off, I know she's going to regret it come that next cold Chicago Winter. But here I sit 1500 miles away, and I can't do this for her, all I could do is talk to her. She has been through so much crap in her life, I want her to be happy so badly.  But I can't do any of this for her.

By the way, to everybody who brought a ticket for the NXT Durham, North Carolina show today, go screw yourselves, because I really wanted to go.

I started using the Every Dollar app in October to keep track of the money that I was spending. I admit I can be insecure about money. After what it has done to both of my parents, how could it not. I promised myself years ago that I would be as responsible as I could be, even though the idea of spending frivolously and being broke terrifies me and there are a lot of things about it that I don't know.  I don't know about investing, retirement plans, and all of that. About the only thing I do know is live within means.

But all of a sudden, I feel like I have a good feel for what I am spending money on and where I can save money. I am a saver by nature and having the app and having a budget in front of my face is reinforcing that for me. But what's really exciting is I feel like I can really get aggressive repaying my student loan off. I really am realizing that interest takes a toll. The sooner I pay it off, the better. Even though I was ahead on paying the 10 year loan, I want to get even more aggressive. My goal was to pay it off by the time I reached 40 years old, which would have been 6 years. Now, that is not good enough for me. I want to pay it off with in five years of my graduation, when I would turn 39.  That's probably going to take about $400 a month for the next 13 months. I made the 1st $400 payment on New Year's Day. Let's see what happens.

I'm 37 years old, and one of the servers at work, was convinced that I was probably 24 or 25 years old. Somehow I keep fooling them, I don't know how, I know it's not genetics!

I still wonder if there's a better brewery in Virginia than Starr Hill and Blue Mountain up near Charlottesville. There's nothing in Hampton Roads that can come really that close to both of them. There are a few places around here still to try, but that mountain experience is just special.

I signed back up for DDP yoga after 2 years away. I'm actually at 166 pounds, the least that I have weighed in maybe 10 years. But I feel like I need a little more flexibility and maybe it would help heal my left shoulder and my right hip, both of which have a little pain. As much running as I'm doing now, I want to keep myself loose and flexible. And I think this will be a wise investment. Plus, now that I have a smart TV, I can sync the app on my phone up to the TV. Oh and I can see my heart rate with the Bluetooth monitor. So now, I will know exactly how hard I am working and if I need to dial it back or push myself a little harder.

Now I need to vent on a different topic for a second. I guess this is what compelled me to write so late at night. And this is going to be under the influence of Jack Daniels and lemonade/tea. That girl I was talking to in December to mention she was casually starting to see somebody. It turns out she got engaged the day before New Year's Eve. So she went from starting to see a guy, according to her, to getting engaged within one month of making that statement to me. What a lying piece of trash she turned out to be.

That might sound harsh, actually I know it is harsh, but I just have no patience for dishonesty. My patience has absolutely run out for love.

Say goodbye to love. No one ever cared if I should live or die. Time and time again, the chance for love has passed me by and all I know of love is how to live without it. I just can't seem to find it. Thank you, Karen Carpenter. You were a visionary.