Comfort

I am approaching the time where I will start using a new journal. I somehow thought my current journal would last me four years: it will actually last me less than six months. For this I am thankful, as I really can't stand my current journal. Before I even started using it, I had 11 things I didn't like about it, which is 11 things too many for an object one uses every day, many times a day.

As part of the process of spinning up a new journal, I have previously gone, and will this time go, through my list of life goals and ask myself if each goal is still worth pursuing. My daily process means I'm looking at these goals weekly, daily during bad weeks, so I'd like them to be meaningful to me in a meaning-free world. I believe checking in frequently with one's self is important in that regard. Mom thinks I'm nuts, but what's new.

I have a lot of goals on my list that are meaningful only to me. Many of them are ill-defined and, one could argue, unachievable in their ill-definedness. Take, for example, the second life goal on my list: "Comfort."

How does one track comfort? How does one know when one has achieved comfort? Can comfort be a permanent state? What does comfort even mean? Was I thinking physical comfort? Was I thinking freedom from physical pain? Was I thinking acceptance of my own physical traits? Acceptance of my personality traits? Release of the day to day anxiety about questionable finances, deteriorating health, unfulfilled promises, unachieved dreams? What did I mean when I wrote that goal?

I don't know, honestly.

As such, I'm removing it from my goals. I'm replacing it with "Do meaningful work." This is a question I can ask myself daily, hourly if I wanted to, "Is what I am doing meaningful to me?" and know immediately if the answer is "Yes, keep going it," or "No, stop and go something else."

As far as anyone knows, we have one shot at this experience. And all of this transient, all of us die, everything ends. Meaningful can be defined only by the self. Might as well make the choices that mean, in the end, I can say, "Yes, that was meaningful to me."

And hi. Unsurprisingly, I wasn't able to stop writing.