Goals Schmoals...

Okay, maybe not but...

I'm having a hard time thinking of what I want to focus on next year. A large part of that is that I am not optimistic for the future. Not in a I'm having a depressive swing way, but in a I think the world as we know it is not going to last. 

Everything that Trump campaigned on doing, all of the things that people and the media tried to sanewash away, or he didn't do it last time justify, he's putting in motion to do. He's announced tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada so absolutely everything we buy is going to go up in price. He's putting Project 2025 Heritage Foundation Religious Extremists in to positions of power. He's going to have all three branches of the government under his thumb so there will be no restraints on him. 

I know it's going to be bad. I just don't know exactly how bad just yet. 

I told Brent this morning I've given up on the idea that I want to live to be 100. That's always been my end goal. The goal to rule over all of the other goals. But I think if Social Security and Medicare are destroyed there is no way to afford to live to be 100. I think if we destroy the environment at an accelerated pace there is no way to survive to be 100. I think once the billionaire class has stripped everything of value out of the United States, which is what they are being set up to do, there will be no desire to live to be 100. 

I also know that over the next stretch parts of my head will just normalize all of what is going on. We all will to a certain extent. It's the only way to make it through things like this.

Look at what we did during the pandemic. How quickly it got to be normal to stay inside most of the time. To grab a mask before you went inside a store. Or to the doctor. Ordering groceries online. Making substitutions on the fly for things that weren't available. We all adjusted pretty quickly. We adjusted so well we even kept some of those changes after we didn't need them anymore.

It's a survival mechanism. That adjusting thing. 

So I know that we will normalize and adjust as well as we can. Though I think part of it this time is going to be willfully ignoring as much as possible. I just don't think my system can handle the stress of paying attention all of the time. 

Like I said, I'm not optimistic about the future.

I'm not optimistic about the survival of our democracy.
I'm not optimistic about the survival of a free world. 
I'm not optimistic about the future in general.

So I'm having a hard time thinking about what little goals I want to set for next year. I know I need them to keep my head from spinning but what do you work on when you are pretty sure nothing really matters anymore?

And I know, I know it sounds like I'm in a depressive spiral, but I assure you I'm not. It's not that I feel like there is nothing out there for me, it's that I feel like what we've all just assumed will be there for all of us is going away. That the structures and systems we rely on are going to be torn apart. Because that's what that group has said they want to do do. To blow up the whole system. To take what they can for themselves and fuck everyone else. If you aren't rich it's because you aren't worthy so fuck you...

It's like pessimistic realism instead of depression. 

I don't know how bad it will be or how quickly it will get there, but I know it's going to be bad and I'm not sure we recover. 

So that's what I'm trying to push out of my head while I think about what 2025 might be for me personally. What I want to do for me and my head alone. 

The one thing I can say is that I have firmly decided NOT to do the half marathon. If the Maleficent medal was for the 10K race I would do it. But I just don't want to run a half marathon. Training for it sounds like the worst possible way to spend the next few months. About an hour is the longest I want to run/walk at a stretch. After doing like 10 miles each day wandering around the parks I told Brent imagine adding 3 more miles to this, and trying to get it all done in less than 3 hours. Yeah...no. 

I'm a slow jogger. I like being a slow jogger. I still get enjoyment out of the workout doing it that way. Upping it to a half marathon, I think, would squash that. 

And I think that's going to be the focus of any goal I set next year, how does this bring me joy or peace? 

Reading, writing, working out, those all bring me joy or peace in some way. As long as I set them up in realistic amounts. 

The world is going to be shitty. Let's not add things to that voluntarily. 

So those will be the goals. Or the goal theme. 

Let's make our own worlds, our pockets of the world, as pleasant as possible. 

Now I just have to decide on specifics. 

First: NO half marathons