Thought of the Day: "A Living"

“You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.” -- Winston Churchill

(via the Pop!Tech Blog)

Goals for 2009: Yours and Mine.

I don't like the word "resolutions" as its taken on the tone of a promise you make to yourself then forget about. I prefer "goals" less sexy but something real, filled with stuffing, that I can hold onto and check progress as the year goes on.

For the past 3 years, I've come up with my annual list of goals via a trip to some coffee brewing establishment, a legal pad and a nice stretch of free time. The goals then hang on my bathroom wall, to be crossed out when completed. Sometimes I remember to monitor those yellow pages throughout the year. This year I didn't. But if I write them down somewhere, I usually end up working towards them anyway.

2009 Goals:

1. Financial literacy. Beyond paying my bills, I have really no idea where the money I make goes. Which is fine if you're 15 and working at Yogurt Village but not if you're 35 and a founding partner in a small business. So I'm currently investigating a number of online financial monitoring programs (Mint.com is in the lead) which hopes of everything money related in my existence becoming visible and transparent--meals, coffees, crack fixes, all of it.

2. Health and weight loss. I lost 27 pounds this past year (No, I wasn't always this handsome) and have another 18 to go to reach my goal. I'm planning on 2009 being the year that happens, which will more than likely require a few changes to my current exercise and diet plan. Ideas in the works include a weekly fast, drinking more water and driving less.

3. Writing. I am a writer. I've got 1 book and 15 years of publishing to prove it. And with something that gives me this much joy and fulfilment, I write surprisingly little. And irregularly at best.   

I'm changing that. Starting Monday, I'm writing 2 hours a day, 5 days a week. No exceptions. The rest of my work will get done, I know that. But writing is as fundamental to me as exercise, meditation and the company of friends and family. I must treat it as such.

Tell me, what are your 2009 goals and what rituals do you use in coming up with them?

Thought of the Day: "Love"

"Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, or retaliation. The foundation of such a method if love."

-- Martin Luther King, Jr. (via Criminal Minds)

Thought of the Day: "Wasted Time"

"Draw, Antonio, draw. And do not waste time."

--From a letter Michaelangelo wrote to himself found in his study after his death (via Annie Dillard's The Writing Life).

How it Should Be:

Wherein we how we spend our time and what it means.


MP3 File

Thought of the Day: "How Serious is Your Life?"

"Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious."

--Brendan Gill (via The Writer's Almanac).

Thought of the Day: "A New Kind of Success"

"There is no formula for success except perhaps for an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings."

--Arthur Rubenstein (via Criminal Minds).

Overheard at SXSW: "Lying and Truth"

"In order to tell a true story, you first have to lie."

--Jean-Luc Godard (heard on a panel about truth and documentary making)

Thought of the Day: "Open Doors"

"When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us."

--Alexander Graham Bell (via The Writer's Almanac)

And with those lovely words, we are off to SXSW.

See you in Austin.

Thought of the Day: "Tightrope or Feather Bed?"

"Life is always a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope."

--Edith Wharton (via The Writer's Almanac)