Dora's strategy for a most-excellent adventure

When I was about 8 years-old, my life’s goals were:
1. Have a colonial dress so I could match my Felicity American Girl Doll
2. Go to Colonial Williamsburg
3. Go to the Redwood Forest
4. Go to Disney World
5. Get a cat

As the years passed by, the following goals were added to the list:
6. Travel to Pompeii
7. Become fluent in French
8. Learn to play guitar
9. Become a published author
10. Go on a cruise near Alaska
11. Go on a cruise near Antarctica
12. Pass Calculus BC (please dear God)
13. Visit all 7 continents
14. Go to a place where French is the official language
15. Go to Prince Edward Island
16. Finish all of Jane Austen’s novels
17. Go on a sightseeing train tour somewhere in the western United States
18. Finish a game of Monopoly, a game in which no one just gets bored, quits, and gives another player all of their stuff
19. See a show on Broadway

I’m happy to report that over the years I’ve accomplished some of these goals. 2, 4, 5, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 19 are definitely completed and while I’m hesitant to say that I’ve completed 7 and 8, great progress has been made.
And right now as I look over the remaining goals, they don’t seem totally unattainable. I probably have about 60 years in which to travel to wherever I like; surely I can fit the five continents I have left in somewhere.

Honestly, as I look over the list, the one goal that seems the farthest off is number 18. I’ve met people who have done all of the other things, but I have never met someone, to my knowledge, who has ever truly and completely finished a game of Monopoly. Sometimes simpler sounding goals are actually the impossible ones.


-Dora