Sunshine Revival/Challenge 2025 #1: Goals
Jul. 1st, 2025 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptIt looks like I missed seeing that some people were interested in reviving the (Northern Hemisphere) summer counterpart to the ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
snowflake_challenge at sunshine_revival, and since it was only by happenstance link that I was informed about this, I'm technically behind in my posting, ha. So, let's dive in with the first prompt presented:
Saying I have goals is always a little bit nebulous, because I've been spending several years of "goals" where the goal is to make it through to the next year without having brought catastrophe and ruin on myself. While managing to keep the household that I have somehow gotten running, as well. As time has gone by and the world has gotten more hostile to this idea, it seems more and more like having that as your goal is more than enough to keep you hopping, and take up all of your effort.
Theoretically, though, I'm supposed to have bigger goals then that, because I'm supposed to be one of the privileged who believes that they can always take care of the basic needs of themselves (and their household). Or that, apart from my continued employment and financial security, I'm also supposed to be working on achieving a better spiritual state, a healthy and impressive love life, and otherwise climbing up the pyramid from base needs to more abstract and complex needs that allow me to be more fulfilled, enlightened, and superior to the other people around me. I am routinely reminded by others that my situation is not the same as those persons who have large amounts of wealth to throw around. I am not a temporarily embarrassed m/billionaire. It is still hard not to assume that the reason my life isn't as easy and breezy as the media around me would have me believe is because of a skill issue with myself, rather than the difficulty level being much higher than those media portrayals would have me believe. That, and while I'm supposed to believe that I'm in perfect position to ascend to my rightful place as ruler of all that I see, the people who are actually doing that kind of thing would look at me and declare that I'm too poor to do any ruling, but that they'd love for me to vote for them to rule instead, and they promise that they'll totally represent my interests with the other rulers, and I'm not supposed to think too hard about how much they're definitely lying to me about it, because they sounded so earnest in their promises, and they made enough signals to me to show me that they hold the same prejudices that I do, and therefore I should trust them, regardless of what they actually say or do.
(It also doesn't help that even in my own narrative, I feel much more like I have the power and agency of an NPC than a protagonist, or even a party member. That definitely has more to do with the fact that agency is highly correlated with wealth, salary, and power/prestige of how you make the money than any feeling like I lack control over many of the decisions that get made in my life. Although my workplace seems to be moving more in the direction of telling us what is going to happen, rather than at least waving the fig leaf of requesting our input for such things and then doing what they were going to do anyway. We're adjusting, of course, but we would also like to haul the upper management down to our locations and get them to work desk shifts enough times to understand how the changes they are looking for, and the shortages of people that we have, are affecting our work.)
By this point, it's probably pretty much clear about why I don't have a lot of goals in my life, or some big thing to work toward. I would need to have both means and motivation, and neither of those things are necessarily in great supply right now.
snowflake_challenge at sunshine_revival, and since it was only by happenstance link that I was informed about this, I'm technically behind in my posting, ha. So, let's dive in with the first prompt presented: It's time to bring some light to your journal! Now you can do this in two ways, though you can twist the light in whatever way helps you along ^_^ I know to some it can be intimidating to shine a light on yourself. But know somebody will appreciate you for it!I appreciate the two different approaches, as I have in the other versions of the sunshine variety.
Challenge #1:
Journaling Prompt: Light up your journal with activity this month. Talk about your goals for July or for the second half of 2025.
Creative Prompt: Shine a light on your own creativity. Create anything you want (an image, an icon, a story, a poem, or a craft) and share it with your community.
Saying I have goals is always a little bit nebulous, because I've been spending several years of "goals" where the goal is to make it through to the next year without having brought catastrophe and ruin on myself. While managing to keep the household that I have somehow gotten running, as well. As time has gone by and the world has gotten more hostile to this idea, it seems more and more like having that as your goal is more than enough to keep you hopping, and take up all of your effort.
Theoretically, though, I'm supposed to have bigger goals then that, because I'm supposed to be one of the privileged who believes that they can always take care of the basic needs of themselves (and their household). Or that, apart from my continued employment and financial security, I'm also supposed to be working on achieving a better spiritual state, a healthy and impressive love life, and otherwise climbing up the pyramid from base needs to more abstract and complex needs that allow me to be more fulfilled, enlightened, and superior to the other people around me. I am routinely reminded by others that my situation is not the same as those persons who have large amounts of wealth to throw around. I am not a temporarily embarrassed m/billionaire. It is still hard not to assume that the reason my life isn't as easy and breezy as the media around me would have me believe is because of a skill issue with myself, rather than the difficulty level being much higher than those media portrayals would have me believe. That, and while I'm supposed to believe that I'm in perfect position to ascend to my rightful place as ruler of all that I see, the people who are actually doing that kind of thing would look at me and declare that I'm too poor to do any ruling, but that they'd love for me to vote for them to rule instead, and they promise that they'll totally represent my interests with the other rulers, and I'm not supposed to think too hard about how much they're definitely lying to me about it, because they sounded so earnest in their promises, and they made enough signals to me to show me that they hold the same prejudices that I do, and therefore I should trust them, regardless of what they actually say or do.
(It also doesn't help that even in my own narrative, I feel much more like I have the power and agency of an NPC than a protagonist, or even a party member. That definitely has more to do with the fact that agency is highly correlated with wealth, salary, and power/prestige of how you make the money than any feeling like I lack control over many of the decisions that get made in my life. Although my workplace seems to be moving more in the direction of telling us what is going to happen, rather than at least waving the fig leaf of requesting our input for such things and then doing what they were going to do anyway. We're adjusting, of course, but we would also like to haul the upper management down to our locations and get them to work desk shifts enough times to understand how the changes they are looking for, and the shortages of people that we have, are affecting our work.)
By this point, it's probably pretty much clear about why I don't have a lot of goals in my life, or some big thing to work toward. I would need to have both means and motivation, and neither of those things are necessarily in great supply right now.
