F' that "end of decade" stuff

[drwex]

For a while there were memes going around Twitter of the form "There are X days left in this decade; what have you accomplished?"

This set ALL my hackles up. Year ends are arbitrary. Decade ends are equally arbitrary; they just don't happen as often. No one should measure themselves by such an arbitrary thing.

Sure, I get that it's wise to reflect on one's accomplishments and for some people I know "I'm still alive and a functional human being who's good to be around some of the time" is a giant effort and I appreciate those friends, too, and very much want them to continue being around.

Me? My biggest accomplishment was that I don't seem to have utterly ruined my children in the last decade. This was not at all a certainty at many points. But anyway, back to the rant.

One of the important things I try to keep in mind is that endeavors take their own time. If I'm working on a thing, or you are working on a thing, then trying to get it done by some arbitrary deadline is likely counterproductive. I have a personal love-hate relationship with deadlines in my regular life. They can be good motivational tools but we hates them we does, Precious!

I was pleased to see that - at least in the Twitter circles I frequent - the first wave of memes was soon followed by a series of affirmations of the form "you are a good and valid person regardless of accomplishments" and "don't force yourself into measurement based on someone's external notion of accomplishment" and generally disparaging arbitrary deadlines.

You call it a bubble; I call it a carefully curated group of inspiring humans.

Comments

[redbird]

well said.

May I quote the last sentence, on metaquotes and/or my journal? (I understand that you might not want a non-curated group of people [metaquotes] commenting on this.)

yes

[drwex]

Thanks for asking; generally anything I say in my public entries can be quoted with attribution.

[reedrover]

Big smile! Yay for being motivated in realistic ways.

I try to set goals so that I have a direction to march, but I'm not all that wedded to the finishing date. I'm making progress at the pace that makes sense for the circumstance. My "drug free by 45" goal isn't going to happen, and I'm ok with that. In this case, I'm already taking less than half the drugs I was 10 years ago, so yay for getting halfway down that specific road towards that particular goal. ("Drug" in this case is "prescription." I don't smoke or drink or take anything recreationally.)

[drwex]

We also call "meds" "drugs". Good luck on attaining your goal.

[reedrover]

Thanks. I'm anticipating that about 55 years old will be the sweet spot. My Gyn strongly recommends that I never quite bcp due to the cysts until I am 100% done with ovulating. Which is disappointing and totally understandable.

Still, as I said, I'm walking in the right direction.

[sovay]

For a while there were memes going around Twitter of the form "There are X days left in this decade; what have you accomplished?"

I heard about that through spatch, who was swearing-and-blocking-on-Twitter incensed.

I'm glad to hear it about your children!

[drwex]

I wasn't so much swearing as making disgusted noises. But I sympathize with Spatch.

[flexagon]

It's around Reddit as well, though with some flavors like "what were the best moments of this decade for you" that I didn't mind answering.

I have a similar rant about goals and how awful they can be -- too often someone achieves a goal and then goes "welp, I quit" when moving further in that direction could be so good; or else the goal is too hard and the person focuses on not having gotten to that arbitrary thing, missing a lot of joy and accomplishment along the way. But I appreciate the chance to look back on the last giant chunk of time, anyway. Just don't care to set any goals for it.

[drwex]

Recalling best moments of any past period seems good to me. I just dislike the entire notion of valuing another human based on date-driven "accomplishments". Seems so very wrong-headed.

[jesse_the_k]

Here from metaquotes. You phrased it well.

My carefully curated circle reframed the meme: what would 2010-you find remarkable/rewarding about you right now.

I like that

[drwex]

Thank you for stopping by and sharing it.