I regret to say that I have failed to meet this week’s targets.
I have been listening to a book of Inspirational Thinking on the storytelling thing, which frankly is worse than Ruth as an exhortation to good and virtuous behaviour. If you have not read Mrs. Gaskell’s very commendable book Ruth I will not spoil it for you but the message, which is spelled out, rubbed in and then drummed home, is very clearly that Wickedness Does Not Pay. I would underline that if I could work out how to do it on my computer, just for emphasis, because really the book was very determined on the subject. Also the maxim seems to be especially true if you are a pregnant Victorian teenager seduced by a youthfully rascally well-to-do Victorian gentleman, who seemed, incidentally, to get off scot free and merely ended up as an elderly well-to-do Victorian gentleman, whilst the teenager met a Terrible End.
Anyway, nobody has tried to seduce me, unless you count some optimistic and intoxicated taxi customers, but I have still failed to meet my standards of virtue for the week.
The book told us to write a list of all the Goals that we had and then think of ways of making them happen. Then stop making excuses for failures and just Get On And Achieve Them All.
My goals were fairly straightforward. Earn some cash, make sure Oliver doesn’t accidentally starve to death, make sure all of our clothes are cleaned and pegged on the line every morning, empty the dogs outside regularly so that they don’t wickedly empty themselves in the house on the carpets, get all of last year’s accounts done and finished, get all of this year’s accounts done to today’s date, apologise to the accountant for the stupidities included therein, set up the tax and payroll for the new business, clean the house and get my ongoing story to seventy thousand words.
I thought this was a sensible set of goals and looked forward to being able to bask in my achievements the way the book assured me that I would once I had got my finger out and started being my Best Self.
I am very sorry to reveal that I have failed.
I regret to admit to you that it is Sunday night and my story is still only standing at sixty eight thousand, seven hundred and forty five words. There is still a little time to go, so it is going to be a busy night on the taxi rank, the fat lady, which is still me despite my best chocolate-button-denying efforts, has not sung yet.
I wonder if the deadline should be midnight, or the time of day that I made the resolution, which was around lunchtime on Monday.
Resolutions are rubbish. I really ought to know better. I make this mistake every January as well.
I am a little downcast at such definite evidence of my inability to meet deadlines. I had had great hopes for myself, and it turns out that like being late for work, which incidentally I have managed to do as well, I am not good at them.
I am not writing my Goals down again. The list is sitting in the open diary in front of me, taunting me with my failure, and I will be very glad when it is midnight and I can turn over the page to next week.
I am supposed to have some more goals for next week. Perhaps I had better make them a bit less ambitious, although the chap in the book said that ambition was important.
Life is difficult sometimes.
In the meantime I am pleased to announce the Oliver has set off on his marathon trip to Japan, and my father is getting a little better. He is still hoping to be released on appeal next week and I will keep you posted about his success or otherwise.
Right. I am now off to work, otherwise I will be late again.
I do not want to have any more failed targets.
LATER NOTE. It is midnight. I have got sixty eight thousand, nine hundred and twenty six words.
I am a failure.
