A Different Kind of Monday List

I'm pretty ambitious and more than a little bit of a dreamer, so I have a lot of lofty goals, ideas, and plans that generally don't see the light of day. But because of this ambition to always be better, I also often doubt myself and my capacity as a result of things I haven't done yet. Sometimes, I let the fact that I'm probably not going to achieve my "20 countries by 20 years of age" goal, or that I didn't get an internship in Paris, or that my GPA isn't super-spectacular get in the way of my dreaming and working toward those dreams. I think that was a big part of why I was so unhappy with last year.

Then, today, I stumbled across a "letter" on Letters I'll Never Send, that was written by a 25-year-old guy. I wish I could find the link again, but it seems to have jumped ship on me. Damn StumbleUpon. Anyway, he started out by just listing off all the things he'd done in his life and after reading a good number of them, I was sort of thinking it was just some cocky letter about how privileged he was. Then he ended it with, "I've had cancer, been told I was cured, and relapsed with a time limit. I've written this letter to remind myself that no matter what I haven't done, and won't get to do, there are so many things that I have done. I want to remember each of those things as my greatest successes and triumphs."

I was moved.
I need to think about it a little, but I will soon be posting such a list, and maybe some of you will feel inspired as well, and do the same.

Happy Pi Day!