As a follow-up to last week’s post about “who else might I have been,” this week’s Sunday Scribbling is about the self that’s still in the making. Since I’m a rather goal oriented person, I already have “to do” list for life prepared on 43 Things.

You’ll notice the things I’d like to accomplish are a mix of the abstract, concrete, long-term, and fairly immediate. It drives the researcher in me a little crazy that I have yet to operationalize what “success” in some of these goals might look like (i.e. would cooking one night a week satisfy me?), but I digress.

These are ever changing, but certainly give some insight on who I strive to be…

• Change the world: You can’t get anymore broad that that, can you? But I am still too unhappy with the state of the world to be complacent about this. It’s not enough to create a happy life for myself if there’s so much pain and suffering all around me. It’s the reason I chose my current profession, and it will continue to be a motivator for how I choose to live my life.
• Run another half-marathon: I’m all but signed up for the Staten Island Half Marathon in October! I have a training plan in place and have recruited friends to join me. Once it’s done, I’ll have completed half-marathons in three out of the five NYC boroughs (Brooklyn and the Bronx included).
• Improve my German: I have a feeling that I won’t be satisfied until I’m very nearly fluent, which I fear is a very long endeavor. I guess having a German boyfriend will do that to you, as well as make it all worth it!
• Pay off my debts: This is so long-term that it almost makes me cry. So I’ve chosen to focus on my credit cards rather than my student loans.
• Climb Mt. Kilimanjaro: Ever since traveling to Tanzania in 1999 while I was living in East Africa, I’ve had the urge to hike Kilimanjaro. And trekking the Inca Trail over Christmas was even more of a motivator to try the tallest mountain in Africa too!
• Travel to Thailand: This is another place that’s long been on my list of places to travel, but now that Bonnie & Tom have moved to Chiang Mai, I have no excuses left!
• Cook more often: Yeah, life in New York does not encourage cooking. Is it the hundreds of fantastic restaurants within a 10 minute walk from home? Or is it the restaurant that will deliver 5-star sushi straight to your door at 11pm on a Tuesday night in a snowstorm? Or how about the closet-sized kitchens with two-square feet of counter space? Considering all of the above, this may be more of a challenge than it sounds, but definitely a budget saver.
• Spend time with my nephew: This is a tough one, considering the 5 1/2 month little guy lives 3,000 miles to the West, but I’m determined! I’m also hoping my new web cam will help to bridge the distance.
• Drink coffee without sugar: I don’t know why I’m obsessed with this, but maybe it’s watching the people ahead of me in line at the coffee carts order their coffees with three (3!!) sugars that makes me more aware of my own sugar consumption. I’ve only ever been a one sugar coffee drinker, but lately I’ve taken to eliminating the sugar altogether when I can.
• Get a PhD: When I state this as a goal, I state it as a goal that is out there floating around, for which I feel no intense desire to complete any time soon. My Masters in Public Health has really given me the ability to accomplish what I want to right now in my career. But someday, I can see myself heading down the road towards a little advanced epidemiology and statistics.

Read more Sunday Scribblings here.