Learn X Before I Die

Learning something new can—and should, I say!—be a high priority on many people’s Living To-Do Lists. But it has to be realistic. I was talking with a friend the other day about her list of 100 in 1,000, and she was lamenting about how she had a goal to do a daily practice—learn something new each day through a specific means—in mind that she had yet to start, and she was upset because the goal was to do it every single day.

Now, my friend is a resilient, smart girl who is involved in activism, school, a job and freelance writing. I know for a fact that she’s very busy, as well as ambitious; such a goal would not only be hard to accomplish but also dampen her spirits.

While I told her to cut herself some slack, I had to admit that I could empathize. In my late teens/early twenties (where my friend is at in life as well), I had set some pretty insurmountable goals for myself, too. Learning a new vocabulary word, quotation, and Spanish word a day, plus a memorizing a poem and read a work by Shakespeare every week, was a bit too much!

One of them may have been okay; but having all of them together was ridiculous. I had multiple jobs and my courses to worry about, after all; setting yourself up for failure is the opposite of what your Living To-Do List should be about.

It should be about the things you direly want to do—the most important things in your life. And if all of these things are important, break them down into more manageable bites. For example, try three new vocabulary words a week, or a work of Shakespeare each month. That way you can do a little at a time, accomplish your goal, and not feel so down about it afterward.

What thing do you want to learn before you die? Maybe you’re into a language—something very useable, like Spanish or French, or unique, like Gaelic. Perhaps you want to learn every country and its capital, and a few other facts about it. (That one’s on my list!) Maybe you want to learn a new dance, how to cook, or how to build model airplanes. Perhaps your inner artist wants to learn to paint, to do origami, or to get on board the bottle cap art train. Whatever it is, just be sure to do it in measureable, doable steps that won’t drive you crazy.