I have, I want

First, I built a splash page profile to help expand my reach as I go into this new world of freelance, casual employment.

aarond.me

Tell all your friends, share with all your groups, hire all my services. Isn’t that a cool, rhyming name? Say it with me: aaron d dot me. Memorable?

But now on with the show.

In a survival situation one of the first things you’re taught to do is take count of what things you have and what things you need to have. It helps you to plan out steps to improve your scenario and get an accurate perspective on your situation.

Day to day my life is in survival mode. Not in a morbid way, just in terms of being lost without the prospect of help or a search party finding me. Call this a stock take on life.

I have.

• I’m healthy. I am in better shape than I’ve ever been in my life. I run and lift weights close to every day, and don’t eat rubbish all the time.
• I’m not exactly poor. Living in this depressing small town lets me keep afloat, despite now being intermittently employed. I can buy the things I need or want, within reason. I’m infamously economical.

I want.

• I want to travel. Right now I don’t mind if it’s just a touristy vacation. I wouldn’t really like to do it alone, though. Anyone want to go to Rarotonga for a week? Budget airline Jetstar has extremely cheap direct flights, and in the current off season really nice accommodation is available too. My treat?
• I want friends. Being the king of all introverts doesn’t help. Things… changed over the last 12 months for me (long story, I did a speech about it) and I guess now I don’t have a circle to slot into.
• I want goals. I don’t really know what goals I could set. The things I’d like can seem insurmountable, and anything else is just frivolous.

In the presentation I gave I ended with this corny sentence:

And learning – both how things work and how to be a better person – is the ultimate goal that anyone could want to strive for.

But now with hindsight, that is way too broad. Learning how things work amounts to reading never ending stacks of non-fiction books. It is fulfilling, but it gets hard to flight the tedium that can set in. Being a better person is easy - just keep that goal in the back of your mind when you interact with others and being a better person will come naturally.

This isn’t an exhaustive list. I’m certain I’d think of many more, but devoting too much time to this doesn’t feel very healthy.

What would you put on your list? Got any ideas of what I should put on mine? Reach out on Twitter - @aaronights.