Goal = Idea + Clarity

With Jack choosing to drop out here in his senior year of high school and move to his dad's house, I've put some stipulations on the move.

Among them, Jack has two weeks from when he decided - 13 days from today - to get packed and move.

Some would disagree with me there; that's fine. For my part, I'm intent on keeping my house in order. I won't allow this unscheduled interruption to drag on for weeks, disrupt our Thanksgiving celebration, or become a fiasco.

He's taken the proverbial shit, now it's time to get off the pot.

Yesterday, we sat down to discuss specifics.

--> When are you packing?

--> Do you have boxes?

--> What do you want to leave here?

--> Are you taking any of your furniture?

Jack had some loose ideas, but it was clear that, much like the move itself, he had yet to think it through.

There was the idea that he was moving, but nothing beyond that.

"I mean, I'll just put my stuff on the porch and call Dad, and he'll come pick me up, cool?"

"Oh, boxes? We have lots of boxes here, right? Like from Amazon?"

"I mean, my stuff will fit in his car. Oh, the mattress? Yeah, I mean, he will bring a uHaul or whatever."

Thinking this way is how I failed to achieve my goals earlier.

Going back to high school, when I used to sit and dream with my friend Bryant, my idea was to be rich.

It was only an idea.

I had no plan how to get there and assumed that it would, you know, just happen.

I mean, I lived with my mom then; she was wealthy, so that entitled me to the same, right?

So off I floated to college, not because I knew what I wanted to do and I needed the education to do it, but because, you know, that's just what you do.

From there, I floated into the IT business because the folks at the college told me that was the future.

I mean, you have to pick a major, right?

And so it went until my mid-thirties when I realized I wasn't pursuing a goal.

I was pursuing a vague notion.

I had no clarity.

Then, my "goal" was merely an idea that I wanted to be rich.

Now, my goal is time.

I want to be able to do whatever I want to do, whenever I want.

Specifically, I want to travel ten days per month between now and when I retire, and I want the option to retire by the time I'm 57 with enough money to keep traveling and never work again.

With that clarity, I've given that goal a name: Ten-Ten-Ten.

And with clarity, I'm making more progress toward the goal now than toward the vague goal of "being rich" in the previous two decades.