Dear helpful author people,

So you're writing a book on productivity, and you decide that you want the reader to make a list—goals for the year, biggest tasks that haven't been completed, top ten regrets, etc. You plan to use that list somehow to teach the reader a pertinent and relevant lesson, and hey wow, that is totally okay with me. I like participating, and I like learning. That is, in fact, why I buy books about productivity. For the love of all things holy, then, please do not make the very next sentence, "Now throw that list away." If anything in the world makes me feel the opposite of productive, it is doing a thing that I then must immediately undo.

Stop including that one horrible thing, and your life as a writer will be totally great and successful and rain down money all day and all night. I promise.

Hugs and kittens,
Rachelskirts

Every few weeks, I find myself doing something extra frivolous in my free time and stop to think how pathetic it will sound in my biography. "There really isn't much to say about January 2013. Rachel spent every waking hour alone, camped out by a virtual pool in World of Warcraft trying to catch a virtual fish for a virtual character whose achievements mean nothing in the real world." It's a harsh game I play with myself, and I rarely win.

I just don't want to get to my 80th birthday party and think, What have I been doing? It's too easy for me to flip on the cruise control and just coast through my responsibilities and routines without thinking about the connections or experiences I'm missing or destroying. I want to be intentional about saying "yes" to the right people and things, and putting them in the perspective of a non-existent biography is how I remind myself that beating the next level of Candy Crush is not what I want to be remembered for.

Looking through my summer photographs and ticket stubs, I see a lot of good progress. I've spent more time with friends and family, visiting waterfalls in Tennessee and getting lost in corn mazes and bonding over My Little Pony marathons. (Let's not forget my amazing performance in Dragon Age: Origins, working with my brother to bring Skirts the mage and Alistair together in a virtual love that will forever alter history.) Just last weekend, I marked two things off of my bucket list with the help of my lovely cousins, Jenna and Sandra.

Related note: macarons are even more delicious than I expected.

There is no fabulous conclusion or rally cry or royal decree here. I just want to take a moment to note that I'm proud of myself for a few choices and see room for improvement in others. I hope I can continue to be honest with myself about what my priorities are. And maybe eating a few more macarons will help me recognize my successes and my failures along the way, right?

"Two slices of ham, three slices of cheese, and a partridge in a pear tree."

1. It was turkey, not ham.
2. That's not how you do a countdown.
3. What happened to the two rolls and the one bottle of IBC root beer?

This has been sitting around as a draft for like six months now, and I'm only posting it now because I think it's great that I felt this was worth saving as a draft for like six months.