This was always going to be a tricky goal to achieve, as I haven’t really done a stroke of work for over two years now (which is just the way I like it!)
So this is one of my more unusual goals, and comes from a visit back to the UK from Australia, when at a big family meal we all drew a card from a pack of “50 things you should do before you die” cards. Here is what I wrote back in 2008 in the goal description:-
Just over two years ago I flew back to the UK, and turned up on my mum’s doorstep on her birthday as a surprise. She was quite shocked, but very happy too. I had asked my brother to arrange a big family gathering for Sunday lunch, and uncles, aunts, cousins and their kids came from far and wide.
We all had a great day, and my cousin Christine had bought me a small present. It was a pack of fifty cards, with fifty suggestions for “50 things to do before you die”.
That afternoon we had each family member pick a card, and accept the task on the card. The challenge was to complete that task before I next headed back to the UK. And if all goes well, I plan to be back there by the end of September!
These were the goals, which were drawn at random:-
Visit Paris
Look up at the night sky through a telescope
Go on a blind date
Take a trip in a hot air balloon
Give more than you can afford to charity
Enact a favourite fantasy
Compromise
Buy everyone in a pub a drink
Take a sick day when you are not ill
Do a bungee or parachute jump
Take a luxury holiday
Go to a huge sports game – football, rugby, baseball, American football, etc
Swim with wild dolphins
Ride a rollercoaster
Hug a tree
Stay up all night and watch the sunrise
Get drunk on champagne
Clean behind the fridge
Ask a stranger out
Have an office relationship
My challenge was the office (or workplace) relationship! So far I have failed to achieve this goal (although I did kiss one of the girls who I worked with when driving trucks in Kalgoorlie!) I have no idea how I can succeed, as I do not plan to do any work between now and my arrival in the UK. I think I have to accept that this is going to be one that I fail this time round.
But I am going to leave it on the list for the 100goals100weeks challenge, and see if I can still achieve it. I reckon I will have to do some work at some stage to top up the funds!
I did plan to do some work back on the trucks in mining when I returned to Australia in 2009, but due t the economic downturn at the time, driving jobs were few and far between, and eventually, after some half-hearted job-searching, I simply set off travelling again.
So as the end of my journey approaches, I am starting to get to work on the final goal on the list, which is to secure a book deal about the whole adventure. This is how I hope that I might pay off some of the spending I have been doing, and so in a way, consider anything done towards progressing the book project as the nearest I will come to work for a while.
Moe, who is with me here in Jamaica, is also working on a book, and we have spent a bit of time together with our laptops at work on our respective projects. And what more romantic a place could you find than Jamaica?
Workplace romance? Well, there has at least been a little work done, and that’s enough for me to count this one as goal achieved!