This will be my end of year post, and this is a big end of year – it is also the end of the decade. That means it’s also the beginning of the next year and the next decade. Can’t have an ending without a beginning, and as with most beginnings, it’s difficult to be sure of where things are going at the initial point.

Humans like to count things and pigeon hole things and make sets of things. This is why we like to keep score. How can you know where you are if you don’t have some kind of way to measure your progress? Brings both good and bad to the equation. On one hand, knowing where you are tells you how far you have to go to your destination; a way to answer the eternal question “are we there yet?”. On the other hand, keeping score leads to comparison (scores have value when compared against other scores or against a scale) and that is where we tend to fall down a rat hole in the game of life.

My progress on my journey is not the same as either your progress or your journey. Comparing my score to your score is pointless. Apples and Oranges. Which I never really understood since they are both mostly round fruit with stems. More like Apples and gorillas. I’ve seen the meme on FaceBook several times that comparison is the thief of joy. How many times have we been perfectly happy with something until we see what somebody else has.

This year I’m not going in for any resolutions, or comparing of my decade with anyone else’s decade. I’m going to go into the new year and the new decade with goals. Goals that are measurable. Goals that are attainable if I keep focus and work towards them. Goals that have meaning and significance to me, no matter what they mean to other people. I have a chance here to set the strategy for the next artificially bounded span of time in my existence. While I would like to start counting years differently (I’m getting older, I’d like the years to slow down a bit), our society functions based on a common understanding of time, so I kinda need to count my rotations around the sun the same way. I do not, however, have to make my goals or my expectations align with anything else in the world but what is right for me. That is an important life lesson.

So as this old year winds down for all of us, I wish you peace, I wish you clarity in identifying your goals, and I wish you the power to achieve them. I’m working on doing the same in my life.