In considering the goals I wanted to set for myself, I did a little research. 43things is a popular website where people list and share their goals with each other and the world. Based on the things people had entered as of this posting, these are the top ten goals of all time at the site:

1. lose weight 33286 people
2. stop procrastinating 24797 people
3. write a book 23013 people
4. Fall in love 22576 people
5. be happy 19980 people
6. Get a tattoo 18360 people
7. drink more water 17204 people
8. go on a road trip with no predetermined destination 17071 people
9. get married 16598 people
10. travel the world 16577 people

I’m struck by two things as I look at this list. First, the goals are vague and very broad. Second, the list is surprisingly eclectic. I could probably spend a lot of time trying to analyze the fact that “Be happy” is right next to “Get a tattoo,” but I think I’ll leave that to the sociologists.

The research I did wasn’t much help to me. So I just spent some time brainstorming about the things that mattered most to me, the things that I’m passionate about, and that I felt God was guiding me to do, and came up with the first version of my goals for 2009. These are specific, measurable, and all are intended to be completed by the end of the year:

• Read the entire Bible
• Read 25 other books
• Publish an article
• Write 250 blog posts
• Write a new Interactive Fiction game
• Lose 30 pounds
• Take a week long family vacation
• Have a 3 day retreat with my wife

I read an article by Gene Donohue in which he wrote, “unless someone is critical to helping you achieve your goal(s), do not freely share your goals with others.” I have to disagree. I think that unless you are extremely self-disciplined (which I am not), sharing your goals is the only way to have any chance of following through on all of them. By daring to share my goals publicly, I’m opening myself to the possibility that anyone who reads this blog may ask me next week, next month, or later this year how I’m doing on one of them. And I’d better be prepared to answer. Just that knowledge will be motivation for me to not put this list aside and forget about it after I’ve written it. That’s the power of social networking.

But don’t be surprised if you see version 1.1, 2.0, etc. as the year goes along, either!

I don’t necessarily agree with the decision—I think it was probably taking things too far, and without knowing all the details, I suspect there were other ways to deal with whatever problems might have been going on. I also know from experience that this kind of problem is generally a symptom of something deeper (perhaps poor supervision on the playground, or something rooted in the school or community culture that was getting expressed in the kids’ play at recess). Banning a playground game seems to me like fixing a mildew problem in your bathroom by not taking any more showers.

What did surprise me, though, was this:

Now, a committee of administrators and teachers has devised a plan to reinstate the game. After a week of “reorientation lessons on playground safety” in physical education classes, classroom discussions of safe recess behavior and monitoring by teachers on the blacktop, students are likely to be yelling “You’re it!” by tomorrow.

It really took a committee (of administrators and teachers, no less) to devise this plan? They had to develop a week’s worth of “reorientation lessons”?

Children need unstructured play time, and this is one of the purposes for having recess in the first place. They also need adequate supervision. The focus of this entire plan was on what was “wrong” with the children. What about the adults who were responsible for monitoring the kids’ play? What about the parents who have the responsibility to instill character values in their children? Where is this kind of approach to school safety likely to take us in the next few years?