Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Getting Ready for the New Year

I spent time today reviewing the good, bad, and ugly that happened in 2010. The ugly is, I resolved to sell a bunch books and I fell woefully short of that goal. I also had a goal to write twelve new songs. I missed that one to.  There wasn't enough ugly to whine about, but the good was really good.  I reached three of my life goals. 
I retired at 59
We paid off all of our debt
And I lost over twenty pounds (though unfortunately I did find a few of them during the holidays).
This week has been an exercise in deciding what I really want to do during the next phase of my life.
I won't go into specifics now because it's the topic for my newspaper column this week, but I encourage everyone to spend some quality time contemplating the question - "What do I want".
My wife challenged me to sit and write my list down. I thought it would be easy, but it proved to be more difficult than I thought. Most people approach the question with blinders on - well, I can't REALLY do what I want because I can't make enough money to feed my family, or it would require me to move, or to go to school, or to.........
I wish I had spent more time on this question when I was fresh out of high school. 
Here's a verse to a song Jilda and I wrote called Do What you love.


There are so many people
Who work day and night
At jobs that they hate
They're wasting their lives
There's a lesson worth learning
They don't teach in school
You gotta do what you love, and love what you do


Kids, do yourselves a favor -- find your bliss.



10 comments:

  1. You retired! You paid off all your debt! You lost weight! That's some awesome accomplishments!!!!

    I love your advice-find my bliss. I think that will be the result of my goal for the year....follow-through.

    I have goodies for my followers over on my blog...

    And have a wonderful, blissful new year!

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  2. Thank you for calling by and commenting on my Blog.

    There are many lessons I wish I'd learned younger and making time to write is definitely one of them.

    Now if I can just get a few of your accomplishments sorted I'll be a happy bunny ;)

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  3. Yay for your positives in the year about to end!!! Here's to more positives for next year for you and yours!!!

    Take care
    x

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  4. Wow! Those are some amazing accomplishments. I'm going to have to do as your wife suggested and write down what I would do if I had no barriers. Thanks for the thought seed.

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  5. Funny, my next post (this afternoon)has a piece about loving what you do in it. I'd say you had a great year. I'd love to be able to pay off my debts. :)

    A very Happy New Year to you!
    Jules @ Trying To Get Over The Rainbow

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  6. I don't want much, and I've got nearly all of that, but I'll probably never get one big thing that I do want, simply because I don't have it in me to go after that one big thing.

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  7. Amen to that!!

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  8. No amount of rumination of what I want to do with my life would have done me any good right out of high school. didn't have enough life lived yet to know what I wanted to do. As it happened, I stumbled on my life's work but fortunately was aware enough at the time to grab hold of it.

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  9. You've accomplished a lot in 2010! I hope you have a wonderful 2011 as well. :)

    Thanks for the advice!

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  10. That's wonderful Rick! You're livin' a dream. Kaye

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