2020 Vision

Today in what I call “useful procrastination”—stuff that is not technically flaking off, but isn’t the most important stuff on my list—I am here to talk about my 2020 vision board.

I’ve been making them for years now and have learned one important thing:  do not put something representing a specific exercise goal on the board.  The demons see it and wreak untold havoc on the body to prevent such goals from happening.  That is why there are exercise-related photos, but nothing that could be construed as a real target—I have weights and Pilates stuff and my spin bike’s smile there.

Perhaps I should have explained from the beginning.  When I think about what I want to do with my life/my time, I consider four areas:  body, mind, creative endeavor, and connection.  That exercise stuff above is for the body part.

All those books?  Those are the mind stuff.  I acquire books faster than I can read them, so I do try to improve the churn by taking a picture toward the end of the year and making the books I have on hand into the goal for the next year.  Since I started doing this, the problem has gotten worse rather than better, so now I have multiple stacks to get all the books in:  work-related books, fiction, nonfiction, and project-related.  Wish me luck.

The basket of stuff in the lower right quadrant is the creation stuff.  I want to be writing and knitting and sewing and coloring and embroidering in the coming year.  Also, I want to make sure that I am using as many existing supplies as possible before buying more.  This is practical and frugal.  It also means that I get to set myself specific problems to solve, like what kind of hat or scarf can be made with the random ends of other projects’ yarn that anyone might actually want when it is done.

The colorful repurposed postcards of Australian aboriginal art at the top are my connection reminders.  One of the characteristics of this particular type of art is that it serves as a kind of mapping in which the mind projects onto landscape and vice versa (please note:  I am totally unqualified to talk about art and I want to be particularly careful not to white-splain someone else’s culture).  To me, maps imply journeys and connections between places and people.  It seemed a good way to represent my goal to increase connections in my own life.  Also:  the colors are gorgeous and make me happy.

So:  on to 2020!