Over many years

(This is entry 92 of 100DaysToOffload)

Reading this post by Visa, which is granted a pretty old one, I had a thought.

When I got to a state of desiring yesterday - one of those "and I want to do this, and do that, and this as well, and be this kind of person" my thought was: for everything, make it gradual.

For instance, I thought: I want to have written more sonnets. So I set myself the goal of writing two sonnets this year. Well within reason. The idea that I had was, if I do two sonnets each year, by the time I am seventy-three, I'll have over one hundred. As a result, I can become that person who has written a lot of sonnets, but over a long time.

Likewise, I thought, I want to have a load of ice cream in the freezer. I want to be good at making ice cream. So, I thought, I could write up a list of ice creams to make, and then make them gradually over the months. After a year, I'll have a lot of different flavours of ice cream that I will never eat.

Silly examples. But the point is, I think it's best now to focus not on "I'm going to do a really good job now", but to think more futurously: think, do X (where X is small) over Y years consistently. The goal is not to be in the good state immediately, but to be in that good state after some time has elapsed.

It's sort of a way of trying to do good by my future self. I'll do just a few weights and press-ups each day, because it'll, over time, help me out. The goal isn't to be muscular and strong now, but to be muscular and strong in ten years. Most everything I do should be to set up my future self in a better state, and less to do good by my present self.