This is the second part in a series, so if you have not already done so, you might want to read Part I before continuing.
In the morning, Dana wrote down all the things she wanted to accomplish, big and small. Then she sat down to have a conversation with herself.
Dana sat cross legged on the floor. She had always sat on the floor as a child. When had she given that up?
Brushing past her concerns, she tried to focus on Young Dana. She could almost see her, sitting on the floor in front of her, also sitting cross legged, despite the fact she was wearing a dress. Her parents had always yelled at her about that, and she had never listened.
Young Dana had a doll and was brushing her hair while she hummed a made-up song to herself. She had always been singing to herself back then, but a few too many nasty comments about her vocal abilities had finally prompted her to stop.
“Hi Dana,” she said to her younger self.
“Hi,” said the child glancing up quickly, then averting her gaze. She had always been so shy as a child. At least some aspects of her personality had changed for the better as she grew up.
“Here’s what I want to do today,” Dana announced, and read off her list.
“OK,” her younger self said unhelpfully.
“What do you think of all that?”
“Some of it sounds fun, but some of it sounds boring.”
Dana smiled. That was fair. “Do you think we can get it all done today?”
Young Dana looked upward as she thought for a minute, then she said, “Yes.”
“What if there isn’t enough time?”
Young Dana screwed up her face as she considered this. “Then we’ll do the fun stuff first and the boring stuff last.”
Dana laughed and had to admit that was a solid plan. Despite having veered off course from some of her life goals since childhood, she had managed to get a job she loved, so she didn’t mind getting work done first. Granted, the boring adult stuff still needed to get done, but it could wait until after the fun stuff (both business and personal) had been taken care of.
“What do you think about this list?” Dana read her bucket list. The things she wanted to do someday but couldn’t possibly tackle today.
Young Dana’s eyes lit up. “Yeah!”
“All of it?”
“All of it!”
“You really think we can do all that stuff?”
Young Dana nodded vigorously.
“How are we going to do all that?”
“One at a time.”
Dana laughed. She couldn’t argue with that. So she circled the experience at the top of her bucket list. “When should we do this first one?”
“Today!”
“But remember we have that whole list of things that need to get done today.”
“Oh. Right. Tomorrow then.”
Dana giggled. She thought it would take a little more than a day to plan and schedule her trip around Europe, so she wrote a date three months down the line. That seemed challenging, but doable. She even got up, went over to her desk, and turned on her computer so she could mark the date in her calendar.
Then she had to make an action plan to make it happen in three months, and the next thing she knew, she was late for work.
The end.