Reflection

So back in January, I had a look at my Master List of Goals. Re-reading the blog post from then, to me, it was pretty clear that I was unsatisfied with the list. I even wrote that the goals didn’t feel relavent anymore.

Taghazout Bay, Morocco. How my 2021 started.

It’s been 9 months since I talked about my goals, on this blog or even to myself. I’ll admit, I was caught up in my life. I was caught up in being stuck in Morocco, how to make money while I was stuck as I watched my savings dwindle, I was caught up in finding a way back without overstaying my visa, and so on and so forth.

Although, if I’m being really honest, I didn’t want to leave.

It’s against any adult logic as tourism was dead for most of the year and then slow to pick up. While Rachid was able to give a few surf lessons here and there, it was not enough to be a sufficient income for the two of us. I started looking at various income streams as a way to bring in money, but all required time to build up into a significant amount of money to live on and not even a success.

What I needed was money. Immediately.

Of course the problem is, when you need money NOW it’s really difficult to get a hold of. When you have money, opporunity flows your way and you seem to be able to get and make more. Kind of like dating: when you’re single it seems like you face a lot of rejection, but when you’re unavailable or not looking, there’s more attention than you know what to do with.

Staying in Morocco was also flying in the face of adult logic because I don’t have residency there. I arrived on a 90 day tourist visa and was EXTREMELY lucky to have been granted not just one, but TWO visa extensions. While I would love to get my Carte Sejour, there are a number of conditions I’m unable to fulfill at this point, namely the financial aspect: having savings or a regular passive or online income.

It was also illogical for me to stay, but Morocco is my happy place.

Refer back to my first point about adult logic and staying in Morocco.

While this isn’t exactly what I want to delve into as a blog post, it was relevant to give some context to my life, my headspace, and my thought processes.

I started my original “101 Things in 1001 Days” list around 13 years ago. It was a LiveJournal thing that had eventually morphed into Day Zero Project. Somehow this concept very much appealed to me, the list building, the checking off of completed goals, the inspirational community all checking off their own goals. My first list very much reflected my priorities of the time and were pretty ambiguous. I was also very easily influeced by societal pressures at the time and didn’t reflect well on my circumstances or mindset.

To be fair, mindset and the deep reflection practices that are in mainstreeam awareness now didn’t exist 10 years ago.

Thanks social media.

In 2018, after a year of living with not amazing desicions post-break up from my ex-husband, I decided I needed to get my life back on track. I needed some sort of focus. I needed goals, obviously. I needed a check list for that feeling of instant gratification and accomplishment that I wasn’t getting a whole lot of. And I thought, “Why stop at 101 goals? I have so many interests and goals in different areas of my life, I want to achieve 303 Goals in 3003 days!”

Ambitious? Probably. But 3003 days is like, what, 8 years?

I don’t remember when exactly I started my original 303 Things master list, so I’ve decided to coincidentally put September 1, 2018. Because it was before my mom got sick, before my divorce was finalized, and definitely still unsure of how to move forward while I was living in Farnham. If I use that start date, my end dates would be November 26, 2026. This is is still FIVE years to power through some of these goals.

And who doesn’t love a good 5 year plan?

However, if I start September 1, 2021, because my I’ve revised my list so it could be considered a new list. This would make my end date November 21, 2029.

But you know what? I am tired of starting over.

Every time I come to the UK I feel like I’m starting from scratch, and it feels like I am worse off every time arrive: less money, less things, less friends, and less job opportunities.

Although starting over in Newquay isn’t the worst thing in the world. Especially with this guy.

When I look at my goals from 2018, so many of them were not relevant to my life. I just didn’t know it at the time. I was still trying to hold onto my old life. My pre-divorced life. My life of youth and vitality. My life of potential and opportunity. The goals I had set in 2018 were an attempt to recapture a part of my life that I had lost and wasn’t ready to admit to it being changed and gone forever.

It wasn’t long after I finished the original version of my 303 Things in 3003 that my mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. My life was turned upside down and it was hard to remain focused on my goals. Don’t get me wrong, I poured what little extra energy I had into achieving my goals, but I got weighed down by the circumstances of my life.

I was trying to hard to keep my life together throughout all this instability I never had the headspace to reflect on my goals or my vision. To be honest, I don’t think I even had a vision at the time. It wouldn’t be unfair to say I was just drifting from one crisis to another. Like living paycheque to paycheque and never being able to save for an emergency.

This year, 2021, is probably the first time in five years that I’ve had any sort of prolonged stability. A lot of people I meet tell me how exciting and interesting my life is, how envious they are of my nomadism, but it’s not a sustainable way of life. Not the way I’ve been doing it anyway. But I’ve needed time to reflect this, to really become clear on a vision, on MY vision. I had to put down on paper again what I REALLY wanted to do.

Even though I’ve never been good with it, I have missed stability and routine in a weird way. It’s only been with 2021’s circumstances that I had any stability and been able to reflect and revise my Master List. I’m sure I’ll revise it again in the next 5 years, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It means my life is changing and that my mindset is changing as well to keep up. Flexibility, in the end, is far more important of a trait to embody in uncertain times.

Although, it doesn’t stop me from missing my person, who has made Morocco feel like home for me.