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Know thyself

May 15th, 2006 at 06:23 am

Had a nice quiet day today. Did a little walking to drop off an item to the library, then back, taking the brutal hill again. I'm getting used to that hill, or at least I figure that since I didn't die the first time, I'll make it this time too.

I just realized that I'm not a good medium goal setter. You'll notice I don't set any monthly or weekly savings goal, nor have I set any Xlbs in Yweeks.

I'm good at the short sprint eg. "I want to try 10 minutes at Z level on the elliptical machine", and I'm good at the long haul with a vague eg. "I just want to save as much as I can." If you ask me my number that I need to hit before I retire, or what weight I will eventually end up being, I won't be able to tell nor will I really care. I think the correct answer to "how much should I have saved to retire?" is: All of it. Or when can I stop exercising and watching what I eat? is: Never.

I'm pretty comfortable with vagueness. Comes from the scientific/academic training. Plenty silly saying to my advisor "next Tuesday I'm going to discover X"; not so silly saying "by Tuesday I will run this experiment twice". The medium goal just frustrates me. To keep at something, for me, I have to be even. Frustration, or any strong emotion, is my enemy.

Another thing that motivates me that comes from the scientific/academic training is the pleasure I get is learning something new from careful observation. I dig the fact that the bath towel goes all the way around, or that after I stretch the knots on the sides of my legs, my walking stride is longer and looser. I'm going to learn some economics and how to buy 28 day T-bills. I want to find out how that works and how much I can make.

I guess I'm putting the "P" in my personality type - INFP.

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