Birthday goals

I’m 24 now.

I like to spend the night before my birthdays alone, eating trashy food, and setting goals for the coming year.

I don’t call my goals resolutions because of Brenda Ueland’s famous quote:

“When you will, make a resolution, set your jaw, you are expressing an imaginative fear that you won’t do the thing.
If you knew you would do the thing, you would smile happily and set about it.
And this fear (since the imagination is always creative) comes about presently and you slide down into the complete slump of several weeks or years – the very thing you dreaded and set your jaw against.”

Hmmf. So goals, not resolutions. Goals. It’s totally different.

Here are my goals for the coming year in no particular order:

1. Land a regular DJ gig at a local club/lounge.
2. Exercise at least five times a week.
3. Wear a zombie costume to a bar.
4. Bike to work once a week.
5. Walk the krakens around the lakes at least five times a week.
6. Make someone’s favorite song.
7. Be interviewed by someone funny.
8. More smoothies.
9. Explore nearby. I have never been to Duluth, Wisconsin, Iowa, or the Dakotas. I will travel to all of them before I turn 25.
10. Eat better. No more than one drive-thru dive per week.
11. Graduate law school. Finally.
12. Secure a salaried position at my company.
13. Have another DJ play one of my songs.
14. Have a house party for my friends in my new apartment.
15. Be better about keeping ice cubes in the apartment.

We’ll see how I do. I’m smiling and setting about it.