Progess, I Think

Posted on | July 12, 2010 | 1 Comment

Time marches on, I continue to marvel that time marches on, and slowly but surely, I make little itty-bitty baby steps of progress on my 15 Before 30 list.

Three weeks after officially kicking off my fund-raising for the American Cancer Society, I’m 1/3 of the way towards my goal, which is close to being more than I’ve ever raised before. So I definitely owe a thank-you shout out to: Frank, Molly, Brendan, Claudia, Maureen, Debbie, Ed, Joe and Crissy for helping me get a good start. I even made the “Top Participants” list on the Making Strides Rhode Island home page. It probably won’t last, but it’s exciting nonetheless.

However… (You knew there was a however) – I still have to raise more than half of my goal, so I’m going to need your help to raise $10 from 100 people. You can visit my Making Strides page to make a secure online donation and you can read my original kick-off post to find out why I’m walking – and who I’m walking for.

The Great Tattoo Adventure is still in limbo, since I can’t seem to summon the necessary courage or find a reliable hand-holder to go with me. What I have done, though, is more or less decided on what I want my tattoo to be. I tried to come up with something that had a lot of meaning for me personally and that wouldn’t lose its importance five or ten years down the road. I’m leaning towards a Celtic knot ring/circle, to honor my Irish heritage and my love of the Emerald Isle. I’d like to see if the tattoo artist could find a way to weave my name (which is a Celtic name, by the way) into the knot. Inside the circle, I’d either have a Celtic script M (for Meredith) or a hamsa (talk about crossing cultures).

I continue to plod along with the whole online dating thing (I’ve got in post in the works on the perils of profiles), getting into shape and mastering French. As I explored in Friday’s post, it’s very difficult for me to be patient, especially when it comes to these 15 Before 30 tasks. Part of it is my natural impatience; when I’m in the middle of it, I can’t see how far I’ve come or even how far I might still have to go. All I can see is the fact that some things take time. The other part is the sense that I have a specific deadline. Sure, that deadline is more than a year and a half away, but it’s still there, looming over. When I feel like I’m not making enough progress, I start to worry that I won’t succeed.

Of course…

What’s “enough” progress? For that matter, what’s “success?” Some tasks are easy to quantify: do I have a tattoo or not? Others, like getting into shape or falling in love, may really depend on whether I alone believe I’ve accomplished those things. At some point, I’m going to have to ask myself what’s more important: the process and journey I attempted or a concrete goal? Of course some things are going to take more time than others. And of course some things aren’t necessarily limited to this three-year experiment. Getting into shape was at the top of my list, but that doesn’t mean I’ll abandon all my efforts on March 15, 2012. Nor do I think I’ll spend all this time perfecting my French, only to never use it ever again.

The 15 Before 30 project is so much more than just a one-shot thing. I just have to keep reminding myself of that, when I start to lose faith.

Thoughts? Comments? Criticisms? Heaps of Praise?

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

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