These things I know.

I'm trying very hard to do some goal setting. After a week or so of thinking about it I realized I don't need a hobby, I need a direction. I've never been much for setting goals, I've never had a sense of where I wanted to be in the future. I've written about that before. It makes it doubly hard.

I know pretty clearly what I don't want. I don't want to be in the same place doing the same things I'm doing now 5 years from now. Pondering the infinite has a place, but there's nothing like the cold slap of reality to focus you on the finite.

I've lamented this before - how does one learn to dream? That's how I've always figured it goes, you have a dream and you figure out how to get there. I'm not sure I have any dreams. Now I'm dredging the backwaters of my brain for what it was I thought I wanted from life. Silly me, I remember a childhood where having my own little home was the only thing I truely desired. I got my big house in the suburbs and it's an empty accomplishment. This I know - I don't want to sit in my house in the suburbs living day to day and waiting to die.

So here I am working backwards. Working from the things I know. My parents each died at age 72. We can work on that as an expected life span. Except that I'm currently morbidly obese which my research has shown will likely steal 7 years from my life. That means that I can expect to die at 65. This I know - I do not want to work my whole life just to die at retirement.

What else do I know. I know my marriage and my job are sucking my will to live. Yesterday my boss said 'do you want to risk your career on {co-worker's} abilities?' All I could think was - this is not a career for me. There is no upward path no increasing challenge and responsibility. There's just dealing with needy co-workers and stupid users (not that they are all stupid - but the smart ones are self-supporting). I need a job that doesn't involve things like doing someone else's job (and not telling them) just to satify my paranoid boss.

Relationshipwise I know why I'm still where I am. There's the little boy to think of. As far as he knows we are a happy family. Really for all intents and purposes, we are. If I don't ask anything more of the relationship than is there we can be happy, even if I am not. I need, however, to consider my action plan for the future. I'm not staying forever. If I'm going to spend my life with someone, I'd at least like to be able to have an intelligent conversation with them.

These things I know. They are a good start. Those are basic life maintenance. Now I just need the spice. That's what I'm pondering.

Brain: Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?
Pinky: Uh, I think so, Brain, but where will we find a duck and a hose at this hour?