Popular Goals vs. Mine

There's a website called "43 Things." I'm not sure why it's called that. I'm not sure how I got it on my Favorites list, but there it is, and it's about things people want to do with their lives. (I know, I've been on this topic...whatever, it's my blog and my life.) They have a little helpful part that you can click and find what people usually want in those categories. The ten most popular are:

1. Lose weight
2. Stop procrastinating
3. Fall in love
4. Write a book
5. Be happy
6. Get a tattoo
7. Go on a road trip with no predetermined destination
8. Drink more water
9. Travel the world
10. Get married

Losing weight is significant in mine too, but it should be on a should list rather than a want-to list; those items should be separate; this after-thought didn't come to me until Item 8, though.
I think it's funny that people would list, "Stop procrastinating." Seems that if that will ever happen, we just have to do it, not put it on a list. I'm surprised they didn't put off putting it on their list.
Some of these are so much beyond our own control.
Fall in love? Now how does a person accomplish that if God doesn't provide the right person?
Write a book. I've tried something of the sort but my writing falls apart after a few pages at least; it doesn't carry a story line well, and I don't have enough smart stuff to put down page after page along any theme that I could ever put a book together. Sorry! You get my best, and it's not best-enough for a book.
Being happy is on the list after writing a book. In one way this makes sense; in another it doesn't. You write your book before you are happy, and it won't sell too well; your unhappiness will come through, and who will want to read it? How can a person sound happy if they haven't experienced it yet? Or if they aren't any more? The way it does make sense is that if I wrote a book and it sold some copies, I'd be happy about that! So first I should write a successful book, then on the tails of that write a book while I'm still happy, and then my success would just start snowballing. It's that first book that's the tricky one, before the happiness kicks in; kind of like it's making the first million that's the hardest.
Get a tattoo is a goal I never have related to, and never will. I'm glad of it too. Have you ever seen a person with an old tattoo? They get blurry and look like they got smudged. And what if you don't like the tattoo you got? What if you decide a few years later that you wish you hadn't paid to become someone's coloring book? We used to have some neighbors whose 20-year-old son had tattoos all over the place. He had a little girl, and the little girl would mark on her arm with a pen and say, "tattoo." Yeah, that's a good first word if ever there was one. There are bumper stickers that say, "Concrete is forever." Well, "Tattoos are forever," too.
Go on a road trip with no predetermined destination? What if it lands you at the dump? I think I want an idea of where I'm going before I get there. I understand the idea of being able to get distracted along the way and investigate side trips, and not have a schedule, and be able to stop and visit with people, but I want to get there and know I got there and be glad I did.
Drink more water. We can all use that! But alongside that are eat healthier, get more exercise, take better care of ourselves, seek God's truth, live biblically, love others, enjoy life, appreciate what you have, be content, live wisely...lots of shoulds that all lead to a reward of some sort. Drink more water should fall in a category of shoulds, and if the shoulds fit into the want tos, then they should just be in the do's. Why would we need to list them?
Travel the world is probably on everyone's list, more or less. But who's going to pay for everyone to travel the world? No one seems ready to pay my way, I tell you, and I can't blame them, since I can't reciprocate either. There are benefits to being content where you are, "blooming where you're planted." Then if the money comes for your trip, you can go, but if it doesn't, you don't spend your life wishing. Still, I did put some travel on a bucket list a few blog posts ago.
Get married. This is somewhere in the same realm, hopefully, as the item, "Fall in love." Thankfully, I can check this off my list. Wha-ha! At least I've accomplished something significant!