Tuesday, October 04, 2011

The Many (Meaningless?) Things I Wanna Do in My Life

Since my previous post about having no overall plan for my life, I was thinking to neutralize the 'sad'-ness of that thought (if you're one those who think it's sad that I have no plan) I wanted to write about some of my aspirations, i.e. things I wanna do sometime in my life just for the experience. Just because I don't have a overall direction for my life doesn't mean there aren't things I want to do along the way why figuring out where I'm going. :P It's just the actual long-term planning of how and when I'm going to do these things that I haven't done.... and maybe will never get round to doing for reasons I will explain later.

So I actually sat down and made a list of stuff I want to do at some point in my life, most of which are related to experiencing nature and wildlife, some involves a bit of adventure, some about performing, and some are just plain silly romantic. And after doing a raincheck of my life so far, I'm happy to say that I actually have done quite a few things that I have had wanted to do at some point before.  Most of things I have 'accomplished' in my life came not out of long-term planning but from an opportunity that came about that made it much more convenient to do what I want to do.... like a lot of stuff I did in Australia would not have happened if I didn't get a scholarship which allowed my dad to afford to send me to Aus for a year (during which I spent quite a bit of his money during fun stuff....but I still had some left to give back to him when I got home. Heh). And my swim with dolphins would never have happened if I didn't get send to Papua New Guinea for a work trip.

For example, some of the stuff I have wanted to do sometime in my life, and I have already done it:
1) Try sky diving (Brisbane, Australia, year 2004)
2) Learn how to scuba dive
3) Swim with dolphins (Papua New Guinea, late 2009)
4) Learn how to play guitar (not the best player, but I at least I can make some music come out of the dang thing)
5) Visit a roller coaster theme park and ride all the extremest rides (Cedar Point, Cleveland, this year)
6) Visit a Hillsong conference (Sydney, Australia, 2004)
7) Travel in Australia (travelled all 5 major Aussie cities in less than a year) and see real kangaroos and other native Aussia wildlife (almost got into a boxing match with a roo after my bag of food and that was painful and fun at the same time. :p)
8) Work in an area related to environmental conservation (not exactly in the field that I was thinking of, but it's somewhat related)
9) Perform (sing, act, whatever) on stage (done this many times in college and church)
10) Slow danced with a guy I really like, among other romantic things (^_^)

And then here are the things I have wanted to do sometime in my life, but have not done yet:
1) Try bungee jumping
2) Visit Galapagos Island
3) Visit the African Safari
4) Make tonnes of money through blogging, or at least enough money to live a comfy life
5) Buy an underwater camera and become an awesome underwater photographer
6) Get married and live in a small house with a big garden so we can have many dogs and less area of house to clean
7) Make a wedding portrait of hubby and I made such that we look 60-70 years old as a reminder of our goal to stay together always no matter how old and wrinkly and cranky we get
8) Start a church dance class/ ministry (after I learn to dance a lot better than I do now)
9) Write a fantasy novel with a female protagonist named Naeem, or Naima or something like that coz' I always though the name is cool
10) Record at least one song in studio that is good enough to be played on radio even if it never is
11) Fit back into the jeans I wore when I was 16.
12) Have a romantic stroll on a beach with special guy under a starry and windless night (don't want too much sand blowing around in case things get extra romantic)
13) Learn CPR
14) Be a manager/ researcher for a zoo (preferably Singapore Zoo)
15) Be part of a flash mob (this is a relatively new aspiration)
16) Volunteer regularly at an animal shelter

Looking at this 2nd list, there are things that would be really difficult to do just because it would be really expensive (particularly those involving travelling), some will remain an unattainable dream unless I give up my current job (like full time blogging or working at the zoo!) , others I don't dare to start on due to lack of motivation or belief in my own capability to do a good job (write a book? How screwed up would that end up? Don't even talk about the dance ministry idea, that might just be hilarious)... and then there are those which are relatively simple things I could start doing tomorrow, if not for pure laziness  or lack of time.

What's missing from that list is a desire to do something that will make a difference in people's lives, the closest thing being starting a dance ministry which I have my own inhibitions about since I'm not a great dancer anyway and it's probably more to feed my own interest in performing than anything else, really. I feel a bit bad that I honestly can't put in anything in there about wanting to make a difference because to be perfectly honest with myself, I'm jaded enough that a part of me doesn't really care to get too close to people. On the other hand, there is the part of me that wants to get over that and just learn to open up and learn to care for people. Coz' at the end of the day, even if I do accomplish every single one of those things on my dream to-do list, most of it was for my own experience and pleasure, which really makes no difference to anyone else.  After all, no one's going to write on my tombstone that "Here lies Carol, who jumped out of a airplace one, swam with dolphins and was part of a really funny flash mob". I get this annoying sentiment that Solomon had in the book of Ecclesiastes (which I just read through today for the fun of it while writing this). The feeling that everything is meaningless. Like you work and toil through your life and have a good time every now and then, but in the end, everything is meaningless, like chasing the wind.

Nevertheless, even though I doubt my ability to make a difference in people's lives as well as get round to doing all the things I want to try and do at least once in my life, I still have the hope that  it will happen... that someone I can change and motivate myself to get out there and just do it because whatever the thing is that fuels my hopes and ambitions run dry.

Lol, I didn't mean for this post to turn into such deep stuff. Perhaps I really need to just stop over-analyzing my life then I will have more time to do the things I wanna do. :P

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