Welcome to 2021. The land of the beyond. We tumbled through the tumultuous wormhole of 2020 and have emerged into the alternate universe on the other side. In this alternate universe that we shall call the next decade, I predict we are going to see many rapid changes - some amazing, some scary and some downright weird.
All that’s fine but it’s a new year and there is one thing we are supposed to do with a new year - set some new goals and make some resolutions.
Goals. It’s what drives achievements, apparently. All the productivity gurus collectively moan to the sound of SMART goals being accomplished. Some publish them publicly to keep themselves accountable.
I’ve had a tricky relationship with goals. When I say tricky, I meant completely dysfunctional, guilt-ridden, panic-inducing moments interspersed with spaced out moments of leisure wondering what is the meaning of goals and why they even exist.
This doesn’t stop me from taking goals. Goal setting by itself is a great activity. You need to think about what's important in your life and then come up with specific goals towards making progress with them. While I will do that, this year I also thought I could start a new tradition for myself for setting up goals that don’t really look like goals at all.
Welcome to Ungoals ✍
Imagine a world where you could express your goals like cavemen, without arithmetic, or any specific output artefact attached. If you could just come up with statements that are unlikely to change through the year? Or even over years. Statements that are so simple that they refuse to disappoint me when I look at them. Such statements would be so non-compliant with the new school of goal-making that let’s call them ungoals.
And here are my ungoals for the year.
📖 Read millions of words: I like reading many words. They mean something on their own and form nice sentences, punctuated with special characters. The sentences reside in dense paragraph clusters (not covid friendly) that somehow conveys a thought or two. Eventually, they turn into pages and books. This year I must have read about 3 million or so words - a guesstimate based on all the books (25 books) and other stuff I’ve read. This is neither fantastic nor bad. I mean, when I compare this to N who has read something like 65 books this year, this looks like street cricket stats being compared to international tests. But, this is not a pissing contest. It is what it is.
I would love to read as many words this year as I did last year. Maybe more. It’s ok if it’s a little less. Reading words makes me happy. It’s like meditation but also like an escape. It feeds my brain with a small drip-drop of new information and sometimes gives me new mental models to view the world. Maybe I will read more words in books instead of reading them on twitter.
I still prefer to read words that tell a story. However, in 2021 I would also like to read words that convey information. Words, especially, that talk about history. History of the world, of science, of technology, of capitalism, and people who shaped our world for good or worse. The story words take care of themselves. I go to them like a monkey goes to a scared tourist holding a banana.
📝 Write thousands of words: I like populating blank white spaces with new words. It’s like painting with hieroglyphics. It’s the only way I know to express what I am thinking that doesn’t involve protracted, unclear verbal stumbles.
I wrote a lot in 2020. My guesstimate is about 70,000 words at a minimum. Some of it went into this newsletter and you were subjected to it. Some of it turned into weird short stories - many incomplete. Some others were thoughts and journals that remain unpublished to the external world. There’s about 10K words of travel writing that emerged from the 500 words a day challenge that N and I did for a month or so. These are also to see the light of day. I am still debating how to get these out to the world.
Writing is cathartic. It’s the equivalent of detoxing the body. When I write my anxieties fade away. I want to continue doing that - more words on more white spaces. Some of them may even make sense.
🚶♂️ Take many many steps: I wish shoes had odometers. I would love to see how many steps I have walked in 2020 in those shoes. My guesstimate is about 3 million steps. This involved little daily things like walking to work, jaunts around the city, walks and treks in trips and the infrequent running in the gym.
A converter on the web says that 3 million steps is around 2600 kilometers. So, if I had started walking from Bangkok, I could have made it to Guwahati with a few hundred kilometers still to spare. Or, I could start walking down from Bangkok along the coast, reach Singapore, have a kaya toast and then walk back along the other coast up to Penang.
Taking steps outside is one of my favorite activities. There’re sights, sounds and smells. On a treadmill, it feels slightly pointless but you don’t have to figure out a way to get back when you’re exhausted. 2020 has been better than previous years but still not fantastic. So, more steps, this year. Maybe I can go from Bangkok to Mumbai which is about 4500 kilometers.
🏋️♂️ Bend myself in new ways and try lifting some heavy things: As it turns out I bend very predictably. Once, in a Thai massage, I was bent in a shocking manner and ever since the trauma has stopped me from getting a Thai massage. I am not your most flexible guy - in fact, I am about as flexible as a plywood that’s been drying in the sun.
N has been trying to get me to bend in new ways as part of her fitness goals. Whenever I attempted to do so, it ended up with me in fetal positions, my legs flailing and head attempting to move towards those legs, holding back tears of pain.
I need to bend in these bad ways more, unfortunately. Like an indictment of who I am, I’ve been told that my core is weak and I need to tighten, stretch and administer it some friendly abuse. Also, I recently explored the area in the gym where they have these dark heavy wheels stacked up like medieval weaponry. I am going to try lifting them more multiple times.
📸 Take a lot of pictures and maybe get somebody to pay for it: On a whim, back in 2019, I put some pictures of mine in some stock photo site. Over the course of that year and 2020, there were a trickle of sales. Over two years I have made a grand total of exactly $70 from selling my pictures.
To be fair I have put no effort or focus in trying to make a sale. This has sparked a thought that I should perhaps try and get people to pay for the pictures I take. As we all know getting people to pay for anything is not easy at all and often involves doing something called selling which I don’t like doing.
I do like the creating though. As N commented recently, when I am behind the viewfinder of my camera, I am lost to the world. If an activity can give me that level of mindfulness and focus I should keep doing it even if it doesn’t ever pay. Besides, I’ve recently bought myself a new mirrorless camera and need to justify the cost.
🤼 Talk to new people: I am not a big fan of talking to new people. On the other hand I am a big fan of listening to new stories and what new people have to say. To resolve this conflict, I’ve decided to start building more of a muscle of talking to many new people. As someone with medium to high social anxiety, this is a big deal. I am going to call, message and meet up with more people even if my inertia prevents me from doing so. The big question is how to sustain this motivation through the year. I need some good wins to feel more comfortable and get into this.
So, there. I hope I can deliver on these ungoals. Also, I realize that for all the cynicism of my posts, I am an eternal optimist. And it helps to be one in these times.
Happy 2021,
Tyag
If you liked this and would like to receive this newsletter in your inbox subscribe. One of my goals is to direct more of the many words I write to this newsletter this year. And cover an ever wider range of topics. So, buckle up!