Goals: An Anecdote for the New Year

       Well, here we are: officially out of the gates, and a day earlier than I promised, too. Now, forewarning, with the year coming to a close in just a couple of days, this post will be a little more sentimental in nature when compared to what I have in store for future content. But, the end of the year is a prime time for reflection and action, an opportunity to re-evaluate our paths in life, and I just wanted to share a few thoughts on the subject. So, without further ado, let’s get to it.

           As the curtains close on the dramatic show that was 2018 (I mean yikes, what a year),  the topic of goals as well as dreams of what the next 365 days has in store becomes commonplace in conversation. This article isn’t here to tell you how to keep your goals; there will be a thousand of those littering the internet in the next few days. What we’ll talk about here is the inevitable failure to achieve some of the goals we set for ourselves.

            First and foremost, goals are important. As a dishwasher, most of my time is spent ruminating on my outside interests and pursuits.  Creating something for yourself to work towards, whether it be something as small as cutting out soda for a week, or as large as buying a house, gives a sense of purpose, and anyone who has spent a significant amount of time as a listless individual will more than likely agree that that sense of purpose is vital to achieving any level of happiness.

           After I graduated high school and started college, I began to feel listless in my own life, not sure which direction I wanted to go. It’s a terrifying feeling, I think, reaching your late teens and early twenties and realizing you’ve got no clue what to do. When I was younger, I considered these years to be the first real steps of adulthood, an imaginary term with magical qualities that implies that everyone who passes through its gates would somehow experience that long sought-after “eureka” moment in which your future becomes clear, the only task left being to follow the stepping stones. Though now that is clearly the most imbecilic concept ever thought up, it genuinely took me by surprise to find it false, and upon coming into what is considered adulthood and finding myself stumbling, a sense of doubt began to pervade my mind. As someone who experiences tremendous amounts of self-doubt at times, it felt as though I were standing along a cliff’s edge, over-thinking each move I made because I was terrified that any wrong decision would send me toppling into the proverbial abyss below.

           It was around this time that I received some of the most valuable advice of my life. A friend I met a few short weeks after leaving home and starting college told me, after I’d aired my stress and worry over a few beers: “Tilsen, these are your fuck-up years. Enjoy them and quit worrying.”

           That’s always resonated with me, and it was then that I began reassessing my goals, reordering their importance by where I was at in my life, and that was when I “rediscovered” as it were, a rather long forgotten passion.

           I find that the word “love” is bandied around quite a bit in our culture of constant exaggeration, but I am without a doubt and unequivocally sure of myself when I say this: I  love Volkswagens. My first car was a Volkswagen beetle, bright orange and chopped into a Baja Bug (think: sand buggy) and the funkiest looking thing you’d ever seen. I learned to drive stick in that shiny, tiny beast, had my first make-out in its cramped backseat, and made countless memories cruising, filtering Def Leppard and Poison through a single, half-blown speaker. The experiences my “German Whore” gave me could never be replicated, inspiring a lifelong obsession with Volkswagen and their stable of aircooled machines. Their simplicity was alluring, as well as their unique looks and ease of customization– Translated from German, Volkswagen means “The People’s Car” and that is quite possibly the most accurate name ever given.

        One model in particular has always stood out to me: The classic Volkswagen Transporter, more commonly referred to as “Bus.” Just the name conjures up vivid scenes of long roadtrips, new destinations, and laid back attitudes. Their illustrious place in the legends and history of drifters and hippies throughout the world symbolizes a kind of freedom that can only be achieved through four meandering tires and an unbridled sense of adventure and discovery.

       The beautiful part of my home state of Idaho is that it is filled with nooks and crannies so forgotten that, when discovered, effectively become treasure troves, especially in this streamlined age of internet transactions. An entire hidden field of rusty gold can be revealed to the world in a few clicks, and  tt was in one of these rich veins of forgotten mechanical marvels that I discovered my bus: A not so rusty, slightly crusty relic of 1974, built in Germany and sent to the United States for untold adventure. She’d seen her share; Though I had found her nosed up against a barn in southern Idaho, and the long expired tags indicated she hadn’t seen pavement in twenty years, an old FOR SALE sign that had become lodged behind the front door panel read as follows: COLORADO BUS–2500. RUNS GREAT! The sign was crustier than the bus, and fell apart in my hands as I removed it from its hiding place.

        She was being sold by a gentleman best described as a cheerful burnout, offering a hit from a one-hitter as we did the paperwork. One of the most affable men I’ve ever purcahased a car from, he spent the majority of our transaction musing on the positives of windpower.

         As for the bus, wasn’t pretty; as I learned from her previous owner, the last ten years of her existence had been spent in a field, no shelter save for the wall of the barn she had been abandoned next to. The interior had been reduced to a rancid mouse nest, the windshield was cracked, the canvas of the pop-up camper top non-existent, the engine covered in such a thick layer of grime and mouse droppings that it was hard to believe it had ever been any sort of powerhouse. Still, the body was straight and 98% rust free; and at the low price of $2600.00, delivered right to my mother’s garage, what disillusioned teenager would pass on such a deal?

           What followed was three years of restoration: Mary-Anne, as she came to be known, had her interior ripped out, a new gas tank installed, a new (to me) engine to replace the grimey pile I had removed from her, brand new wiring throughout, the works. After piles of cash and countless weekends of work, I nearly had it running. It was hands down the largest endeavor I’d ever undertaken, and it was nearly complete.

           Then I sold her.

          Blasphemous, right? This wasn’t because I was in over my head; I can turn a wrench, and anybody who can follow basic instructions can fix a Volkswagen. I didn’t stop caring either, making sure she found a good home in Southern California to a man who restores the old buses and rents them beachgoers. More than anything, I’m always on the lookout for another one, if the price is right. But, for a plethora of reasons, selling Mary-Anne made sense.

            Still, having to momentarily put aside such a big dream, one so intertwined with my identity as a person, made me feel like a failure. I told myself that I needed the money, that it would let me work on my writing more as well as allow me to continue living alone in my apartment instead of having to search out a roommate. The funds raised from the sale allowed me to jumpstart a decent savings account. Yet, putting time, money, and a piece of yourself into a project, only to have to put it on the backburner, even out of necessity, can often bring feelings of inadequacy with yourself as a person.

           Letting a goal fall to the wayside for a while is a vastly different concept from giving it up. As much as I loved my pet project, it was the lowest priority on my list of tasks in life. That did not diminish the passion I had for that van, nor my desire to own one. But, with a full-time job, trying to transition my writing away from a hobby to a career, and multiple other projects, I had to re-prioritize my to-do list in order to prevent myself from trashing the entire thing. But, when chores are nixed from to-do lists, it isn’t as though those tasks are never completed. People don’t generally put off going to the grocery store with the idea that they will never get groceries again.

           Yet, this is what we seem to do with our passions; setbacks like rejection, losing progress, lack of time,  and the general stagnation wrought by loss of motivation destroy any will to pursue something more. We’ve forgotten that  instant success is not a good baseline for measuring achievement.

           Coming into success in any pursuit involves a trudge over a broken road, filled with potholes and ready to trip any who come along. I haven’t achieved it, and odds are that 90% of those of you reading this haven’t either; the important takeaway here is that we keep moving toward it.

           2019 will be a year of both failure and achievement; revel in the goals you accomplish, but take another look at the ones you fall short on. Remember why you set that goal for yourself, and if it is still relevant to you, pencil it back onto the list, and recognize that “re-prioritized” doesn’t mean “impossible.”

 

Happy New Year, everybody, I’ll see you in the dishpit.