Warnings/Promises

I have a lot of dreams, mostly highly impractical. I know I’ll never manage all of them, not in a world where I need money to do them all. But I am scared of living my whole life and never managing any of them…I know that I am the sort of person that could easily just go along with the world from day to day and never make the effort to do the truly fantastic stuff. And I want to have one or two things where, when I look back on my life, I can see some things which not everyone does, which not everyone could do – some stuff that proves that I did something a little different with my life.

So here I shall write down…a few promises to myself. Not all the things I would love to do one day, but the things where…if I were to get to retirement and I hadn’t done these things, I would look back and feel like I’d missed out. I shall try and keep them as few and as realistic as possible, otherwise this exercise has little point.

If I live to three-score-years-and-ten:

I shall have a variety of jobs, not all of which shall be desk-and-computer based.

I shall work fully and properly in the voluntary sector for at least a year.

One day, I shall live somewhere non-urban, remote and wild (but with broadband).

I shall visit every continent (arctic ones optional).

I shall not give up hope that somewhere out there there is Twu Wuv (shades of Newboy), but I shall not feel that my life was in vain if I never find it.

I shall always give at least the percentage of my income to charity that I currently give.

I shall learn the basics of another language other than German, and I will get my German back up to at least the standard it was at when I left school.

I shall live abroad at some point.

I shall do my best to always stay in touch with the few best friends I have from the places I have lived and the things I have done so far.

Did I say few? Okay, I’ll stop.

I shall always be happy to be silly.