- Bucket List -

There are so many things that I want to accomplish in my life, but I never truly seek routes to achieve these goals. I envy the people that do, that work hard to accomplish their list of life goals...I guess similar to a 'bucket list' of sorts. I also envy and respect those that have taught themselves how to do something to a level of proficient skill because that takes discipline and determination that the rest of us lack, or else we too would have put forth effort instead of writing a blog wishing we did. I personally, would like to learn French and Spanish well enough to carry on a conversation with a native speaker...or even ask understandable phrases. I want to play the guitar and hear beautiful music coming out that my own hands are producing - the acoustic guitar Spanish style. I would really love to learn to play the Violin as well, what an absolutely beautiful sounding instrument. I would even like to write a book at some point. Can I do these things? Of course I can.

The thing is that I have taken French and Spanish both, and I know quite a few words and conjugations of each...but I have never carried out the necessity of learning and memorizing enough for a conversation. I have played the guitar a little bit, but I could never get my mind to see the chords and move my hands in proper order to fluently play...but I also haven't tried that hard. I haven't even attempted the violin...well, that's not true, I tried to pull the bow across the strings and couldn't produce one single sound. I can write - I have imagination and sometimes I can word things in amusing ways, but other than starting a blog that no one is going to read, that's as far as I have attempted to go. Sure I have reached goals such as getting my BA, getting married to a great man and starting a family - but these are not the achievements I am referring to...maybe the BA is because that was a purposeful goal to finish school, and the others happened in the course of God-orchestrated life.

It got me thinking about the example I would like to set for Bailey...I don't want her to never have goals, or to have goals and not try to reach them. I want to encourage her to set goals, to have dreams and desires of places she would like to see and things she would like to do - to reach for them. I want her writing them down and crossing them off as she accomplishes one after another. I had a very influential and inspirational teacher at SWBTS that required us create a list of at least 100 things we would like to accomplish in life no matter how large or small or at what stages in life. We had to add to that list throughout the semester and cross them off if any were achieved. It's quite hard to fill up a page of dreams and aspirations, you really should try it...in fact, try it after you read this. Create a list and add to it until you reach 10, then 20, then 50 and eventually 100 or more. I'm going to start another list today, and see what happens. Some I am willing to share, some are private. Hey, at least I can cross off 'start a blog' bc I now have 2. I have to work on the 'get people to read it' part...