My summer update

This summer has flown by in a flurry of high expectations and failed goals. That’s not to say that I had a bad summer; on the contrary, I had a terrific summer. I just didn’t happen to meet any of the goals that I set for myself. I knocked off two books from my reading list: Wathcmen and The Historian. I ran a 5k, the New Orleans Rebirth 5k, in a disappointing 24:50, just keeping a 8:00/mile pace.

However, I’m not terribly disappointed with myself. Yes, I would have liked to read more and run faster, but I did read some and run faster now than I did at the beginning of the summer. In particular regarding running, I am glad that I set a high goal for myself. I did miss that goal, but because of the many time constraints on my summer weekends (weddings, vacations, more weddings, etc.) it was inevitable. I didn’t run many long and fast runs because I was away so many weekends when I had planned to do these runs. I could have set a more reasonable goal for myself, like 25:00. If that had been the case, I would have barely met my low goal, which to me would have been much more disappointing than totally missing my ridiculous goal.

I could have done better on my reading list, and I have no good excuse for this. Traveling is no excuse; in fact, in most cases it gave me more time to get reading done. Instead, I played a lot of video games. As both are leisure activities, I don’t feel all that bad about the substitution. I still must make a better habit of reading, both because I do enjoy it and even I, a video game activist and aficionado, understand that reading is often more intellectually stimulating than grinding a warlock to level 80 in World of Warcraft (one of my many unspoken achievements for the summer).