Last month’s “Someday” of getting my website up and running is still in progress. I hit technical difficulties that derailed me, but I haven’t given up. Once again, that “Someday” was harder to accomplish than I anticipated. So, that work will stay in the background and now it’s time to tackle my final month’s “Someday” as the 366 days come to an end.
I had been planning to have this month’s “Someday” be to learn to swim so I could complete a mini-triathlon later this year. Completing a triathlon has long been a goal of mine. I can run, I can bike, but I cannot swim well enough to complete the swim portion, so my “Someday” was going to be taking swim lessons and learning to swim. However, as the beginning of the month approached, I was more and more agitated about the idea. The reality is, I don’t like to swim. I don’t like getting my hair wet every day. I don’t like the idea of swimming back and forth in a pool as a type of exercise. I haven’t enjoyed swimming since my junior high days when the activity wasn’t so much swimming as jumping around in a pool with friends on a hot summer day.
I’ve learned throughout this year there are some “Somedays” I no longer want to pursue, i.e. speaking Italian. I’ve also realized lately many of the “Somedays” aren’t providing me with joy. Even though I thought they were something I wanted to do, doing them doesn’t give me the happiness I thought they would – this is the category in which I’d put swimming. I want to complete a mini-triathlon, but the idea of swimming fills me with dread, not happy anticipation. So why do it? Why subject myself to a regular practice that doesn’t offer me something positive? Maybe one of the lessons from this project is it’s okay to not do everything. It’s okay, when given the choice, to choose joy and happiness over some nebulous idea of what I should be doing. Do I really want to complete a triathlon? Maybe, but if I don’t want to do it strongly enough to eagerly anticipate the accomplishment of learning to swim, then maybe a triathlon shouldn’t be on my To-Do list.
Something else I’ve learned this year is I like creative activities. With that in mind, I’ve chosen my final month’s “Someday”. I’ll unveil it tomorrow.
366 Somedays 