Paper Cups and Orange Trees

I've had this idea for a blog for awhile. I just didn't realize it...or put the time into thinking it through. I'm a procrastinator like that. I get these grandiose ideas and never follow through. I'm not exactly sure why. When I was in college, I started a notebook of things I wanted to accomplish before I die. It was my idea of a bucket list- but long before there was a crappy Hollywood movie about it. I hate the term "bucket list" so I've always just referred to it as "that book of stuff I wrote down long ago that I'll probably never accomplish." There were some big things in there- make a guard at Buckingham  Palace smile, write a skit for SNL, have myself paged at Madison Square Garden and about 200 more. Through the years, I've managed to cross off a few but there were still so many left to accomplish. What is my problem? I'm a project manager. My weekday job is simple- make it happen.

I'd like to think that I lead a pretty exciting life but I know there is still so much more I want to do before my time is done. The problem, I finally realized, was that this list I made contained things that really didn't matter to me all that much. It was a list that if accomplished, would be pretty impressive to share with others but wouldn't be all that gratifying to me and my life. What about ditching that list and starting a new one? A new list of things that would genuinely make me happy and, more importantly, were realistic yet still playful and fun. Another problem I noticed was that there was no deadline on my original list. It was a generic "things to do before I die" list. I'm the type of person that needs a deadline. If you tell me I have five years to do something, I'll spend about four and half of those years thinking about it and finally taking action at the very end. If you tell me I have a lifetime, then time is unlimited and if I don't accomplish it today or tomorrow, it's not a big deal. I'm a little more grown-up now and know that a long life isn't a guarantee and I need to do the things that matter to me now.

In order to make this realistic, I needed a new deadline. I turned 33 in June and this is a list of 33 things I want to accomplish within the year. Some are big, many are small, but all are meaningful. Things that won't matter to anyone but me and I'm perfectly ok with that. The goal of this blog is to document my efforts in crossing off things on my new list and keeping me accountable. I'll tackle each of these items with the goal of doing everything by my 34th birthday. Some items will require money, some just discipline and others are going to require a little bit of luck.

My mom had a friend that came to visit her in Riverside, California (my hometown) and if you know much about Riverside, you know that it's not very exciting. It's not exactly a tourist spot but this friend mentioned a few things that he really wanted to see. Riverside is known for its citrus and is lined with orange trees. Apparently the tree that revolutionized the citrus industry is still in Riverside and is a historical landmark. The "World's Largest Paper Cup" also lives in Riverside in front of the building that was once the Dixie Corporation's manufacturing plant. Here were these two things that a newcomer wanted to see that I never even knew were in the town I lived in for 22 years. While focusing on accomplishing impressive things on my list, I was missing things right in front of me. The goal of my list is to look around and accomplish those little things that I've ignored through the years because they weren't exciting and didn't make memorable Facebook posts. The new list is much less sexy but much more fulfilling and I've toiled back and forth for the past month about what would make the cut. Some of the things that were on the list have already been accomplished in the past few weeks because I kept procrastinating starting this blog. Shocker.

Next Post: The List