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Three Old-School Goals for 2024 That I Might Actually Achieve

My time is short and I need to get these done

Paul Combs
5 min readJan 4, 2024
Image: Wikimedia Commons

It’s the first week of January, a time when everyone sets goals for the new year, and I am no exception. Unlike many others, however, I tend to set goals that anyone who knows me will quickly see are clearly unattainable. A few recent ones that ended in abject failure included finally reading both Ulysses and Infinite Jest (Charlie Brown has a better chance of kicking that damn football than I do of ever finishing either of those monsters), stopping smoking (it really is the only joy I have left in life), and not being so grumpy all the time (I’ll give you time to stop laughing before continuing on).

In looking back at 2023, any goals I might have attempted were derailed on January 3rd when my mom went into the hospital, triggering a ten-month stay in the woods of East Texas. It was a schizophrenic existence, to be sure, and one I may write about more in-depth at some point. For now, suffice it to say that I was too busy keeping mom’s meds straight, trying to find a decent internet connection, and ignoring the fact that there were more “Trump 2024” flags than American flags (though nothing outnumbered the Texas flags; we are proud of that bad boy) to worry about goals.

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Paul Combs
Paul Combs

Written by Paul Combs

Writer, bookseller, would-be roadie for the E Street Band. My ultimate goal is to make books as popular in Texas as high school football...it may take a while.

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