First Step To A New Life – Figure Out Your Priorities

Get A Life

I’m a member of Meetup.com, a site which I think is absolutely great.  For those of you who don’t know it, meetup allows you to meet new people based on shared interests.  It’s a site that deserves a post of its but for now, just bare with me.  Today, I got an email from meetup telling me a new group had formed with the following description:

Did your college degree land you an assistant manager’s gig at Starbucks? Are you twenty something and still living with your parents? Is your debt to income ratio higher than you are right now? Are you tired of all the stupid, fucking corporate bullshit?

If you answered yes (or “meh”) to any of these questions then you should come hang out with us!

This group is for those of us, children, who have have been left behind. We realize it’s all bullshit, that we’ve been lied to, that it’s not going to get any better if we “just stick it out.” This is for all you people who spit out the bitter Kool-Aid and are looking for human contact that’s more genuine than “Would you like whipped cream on that latte?”

My first reaction was “geez!  Whine much?”  My second reaction was “geez!  Whine much?  Why not do something about your life instead of whining about it!”  Then I realized something, I wasn’t that much better than these guys when I graduated school and I had the good fortune to graduate at a time when the world wasn’t going through a major crisis.  Still, just because I was a whiny 20 something (and possibly 30 something), doesn’t mean it’s ok.  You’re right, it won’t get better if you “stick it out” but it will get better if you get off your whiny butt and do something!  It’s time to get a grip and accept some responsibility for that useless college degree (what on earth made you major in French?) and start improving your life!  So here it is, step 1 of the Equally Happy life improvement regime, MAKING PRIORITIES!

What Do You Want To Do?

Seriously, have you ever thought about what you want to do with your life?  What kind of experiences do you want?  What kind of things do you want people to say about you at your funeral?  What kind of life do you want to lead?  Most of us go through life just getting by.  We live day by day, waiting for the next weekend to arrive so we can try to forget about the previous week before the next week starts.  What the heck kind of miserable life is that?  I know Hollywood makes all those “free spirit” characters who flit from one day to another look very cool and romantic but this is total Hollywood bullshit.  Most “free spirits” like that end up in meetup groups like the one I mentioned above.  Which is not to say that being free spirited is a bad thing, it just needs to be done with a little bit of forethought (yes, you need to plan out your lack of a planned life.  How perfectly ironic!).

Try This

Take out a sheet of paper (or even better, start a new Google doc) and write down some things you want to do and be.  Don’t let reality get in the way of your dreams and don’t hold back.  Just write it out.  You want to be a chef?  Write it down.  You want to raft down the Amazon river?  Write it down.  You want to write a book?  Write it down.  You want to have kids?  Write it down.  You’re a beautiful woman who wants to have a casual fling with a personal improvement blogger?  Write it down (and then email gjosefsberg@gmail.com).  Ok, so maybe that last one was a joke (it wasn’t) but I would still urge you to do this little exercise.  In the next few weeks I’m going to go through a number of steps I want you to take and writing down your priorities is the starting point.  Seriously, if you can’t even figure out what you want to do or be, you’re in more trouble than I can help you with.

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Thank you to My Wealth Builder for including my “are you worthy of a raise” article in their recent blog carnival.