Friday, July 23, 2010

Two Step

How does it go, Two steps forward and one step back, or is it one step forward and two steps back?
Either way that seems to be the progress here at the mini farm.

I was sitting at work today thinking about the projects that still need to be done so I can get to where I want to be. In just a short time I found myself overwhelmed and noticed I was not going forward at all, but going backwards.

When we moved out here eight months ago I made a very detailed plan on each project that was prioritized from what was needed the most to least and a time line for completion on each one. The goal was five years to be completely self sufficient to where all I had to do was get a part time job to pay for my hobbies.
The list started out with five phases and twenty seven main projects and of course each one of those had sub projects under them totaling seventy one things to do before I could say I was done. It sure looked good on paper.
With a slight learning curve on prioritizing and only three main projects marked off the list today I decided to jot down a revision to that project list. Guess what, I don't know how but the list grew. I now have thirty six main projects all with at least two sub projects totaling a whopping eighty five things I have to do before the five year mark. With money and time not on my side the outcome of making that time line looks grim.
So now it is a seven year plan, but I can already see it will never end. As soon as one project is completed two more takes it's place. And even if there was an end then what, sit on the porch?
I think the never ending cycle is the beauty in it all.

2 comments:

  1. "If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours ... In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness."
    Henry David Thoreau

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  2. "Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail."
    Henry David Thoreau

    Thoreau, of course, was famous for building a cabin in the woods and living there for a couple of years as an experiment to see just how much it took to live and if a person could be self sufficient without having to work 24/7 until he drops from exhaustion.

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