I recently resumed the practice of reporting weekly on my goals.
This took quite a bit of gumption, since I’ve not been in the habit of reviewing my goals this year — and as Dee Duke says, a goal that is not reviewed is not much of a goal. There is a strange correlation between reviewing goals and actually pursuing them; you’d think by now I would have caught on to this.
Anyway, I started reporting on my goals, and the first week I earned a rather low (unweighted) score of 38%. This means that I managed to complete only slightly more than one third of the things that I had decided were important for me to do.
(Parenthetically, this is one of the most annoying things about goals. It would be one thing if goals were brutally imposed by oppressive, external forces; but when you set your own goals and still can’t achieve them, it is just sort of pathetic.)
So as soon as I sent the email reporting the abysmal 38% score, I determined to do better. Surely I could improve to at least 50%, I wondered?
One of my goals is to celebrate a date night with my Sweetie each week. It doesn’t seem like a very hard goal, but you would be surprised how quickly a week can go by without remembering to date your Sweetie. So this week I decided in advance that it would be Friday night. Kathy and I usually don’t have anything going on that night, and that would give me all week to plan.
It looked pretty, if I do say so myself. OK, at least the girls were pretty.
Except I forgot to plan. I’m not a big planner, in any case, and it was Friday morning before I knew it. Hurriedly, I rummaged around in my brain for a good idea, like the way you might rummage around in a spilled bag of candy, hoping for one that wasn’t noticed by those who came before you.
And then it hit me — why not a double date with some of our friends? Now that so many of our kids are grown and gone off to college, maybe Kathy and I could pretend to be grown up ourselves, and have a date with another married couple! Kathy has a lot of good girlfriends, and I really like a lot of their husbands, so it seemed like a good idea.
A couple of years ago, we got together with seven other couples and cooked a meal together, with the men divided into two teams and competing for the best entree with randomly assigned ingredients. It took hours for us to actually produce a meal, with some rather interesting results, but as a social event, it was a smashing success.
So I decided to trade on that achievement, and texted my friend Chris.
“How ’bout we double-date with our wives, tonight,” I offered. “We can whip up a meal for them, and then watch a movie or something. My house. Sound good?”
Chris quickly jumped on the band wagon. Did I mention he is an accomplished chef? So we cooked a delicious meal of grilled chicken and brown rice, with peppers and zucchini and onions and a few small tomatoes, all brushed with oil and sizzling on the grill. I set the table complete with tablecloth, cloth napkins, a candlestick, and crystal water goblets.
So delicious!
We sat and talked about our children (what else do old married people talk about?) and then watched a movie — it was a very pleasant evening! I think this whole date night thing might be worth continuing. Stay tuned for next week’s installment.
Project 365, Day 247
Tim
