I think, just now, I realized something, in regards to the 101.

The biggest incentive for creating this list was because I want to feel as though my life has meaning, that I am doing something of substance with my life. Even though I though I did all of the things that I thought I needed to do to be happy (got an adult-person job, became engaged to my best friend, made better money, gained more responsibility), I’m still not. I’m not as profoundly depressed as I was given a single year ago, granted, but I still feel as though there is something huge missing in my life. I wonder if part of that is simply that right now, I’m doing the things in life I feel like I’m supposed to be doing, rather than the things that I want to be doing.

One of my sincere hopes is that this list is not only a balm, but a treatment. I’m hoping that this list is an avenue to not only accomplishing goals, but finding myself: my voice, my spirit, my center. I want to give every action and thought meaning. Some of the sagest words that I ever gave in advice struck me very deeply as well: if there is any meaning to this, outside of reaching God, outside of making it through to the next plane of existence, outside of just making it day-to-day, it is that we must leave this place better than when we got here.

I was looking through Facebook today, and saw that my future brother-in-law had posted pictures of his New Year’s Eve, and I felt a deep longing tug at my viscera, deep within me. And I realized the reason why I am doing these tasks so publicly: life is a shared experience, and this shared experience is one of the parts of my life that I am missing. For being here on this earth for 23 years, I feel as though I don’t have enough to show for it, at least in regards to the shared experience part.

So, one of the things that I am going to make a point of being very mindful of until September 2010, is that the journey will be almost more important than just accomplishing the goals. My greatest joy will be on September 28 of 2010 to say, “I grew. I became better than I was before.”

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Howard Thurman