More of This

As I publish this, it’s the 18th of March, or the 77th day of the year. Lucky sevens, if you will, falling just after St. Patrick’s Day. The luck of the Irish following us? Let’s hope for that, but get back to living with purpose just the same. For we make our own luck, don’t we?

We can usually predict the future by looking at what we consistently do. With that in mind, I’ll likely be writing every day, barely keeping the Duolingo streak alive and will have read my share of books (though never quite enough). It’s easy to see those filling in from now until the end, whatever that looks like. But what of the gaps? The inconsistencies also predict who we become, don’t they?

It’s clear I need to get a dog soon if I want to maintain a walking streak, as walking the neighborhood at night without a dog just makes me feel like the weird neighbor. I probably don’t need to enhance that reputation. Alternatively, I could move to a place where walking is just the most obvious thing to do with your time. Kudos to friend and fellow blogger Joe, who managed to find a job and home in close enough proximity to each other that he can walk or snowshoe between the two. Joe doesn’t seem to complain about finding time to walk, he just walks. He proves every day that we can create the situation that works best for us when we focus on it.

Life can surely be unpredictable, but we can safely predict that our life will mostly be more of this if we keep doing the same thing every day. The question to ask is, is more of this okay, or is it carrying us to a place we’d rather not go? Almost a quarter of the way into the year, we can see the trend we’re setting for ourselves, can’t we?

“You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.”
― James Clear, Atomic Habits

When the year is over, it would be great to have written all I’d like to write, to have read all that I’ve got on my reading list, and to finally hold my own in a rapid-fire conversation in French. But it would also be great to be in better shape than I began the year, to have positioned myself for a successful year in my career, and to spend meaningful time with exceptional people. These are things we can look back on the blank spaces with regret, or we can celebrate as small wins strung together just so. More of this can be a positive statement, if we create the right situation for ourselves.

So what’s the trajectory? Is more of this a good thing or bad? With this answered, we’ll know what to do next.