12 Unaccomplishments

For the holidays this year, I decided to mix things up with my annual holiday letter. Usually, people use the holiday letter to list all of their family's accomplishments, markers of progress, and current interests and hobbies. When you're single, you have to rely on your own accomplishments. The letter takes on a totally different tone when every sentence starts with "and then I . . ." followed by some stellar achievement. Because seriously, who's going to list their failures? Their shortcomings? Their disappointments?

Well, I gave that idea some thought and decided that listing my accomplishments seemed too self-aggrandizing. Besides, it was an embarrassingly short list. 1.) Finished Ph.D. 2) Got job that's one step away from adjunct poverty (like abject poverty, but with more work). And 3.) Turned 40 (I'm not really sure this was an accomplishment since I didn't have anything to do with it.) So, instead of listing all of my accomplishments in my holiday letter, I decided to list 12 things that I did not do this year. Here's my list:

1) I did not ask for, nor did I accept a government bailout.

2) I did not swim the English Channel.

3) I did not win American Idol.

4) I did not try to sell a US Senate seat for personal gain.

5) I did not construct a car out of a block of cheese.

6) I did not read the phone book from cover to cover.

7) I did not give birth to twins in the south of France.

8) I did not break any Olympic records.

9) I did not see any snow.

10) I did not change my home address.

11) I did not seek, nor did I accept, my party’s nomination for President of the United States.

12) I did not put my left hand in, I did not put my left hand out, I did not do the Hokey-Pokey and I did not turn myself about.

Who knows, maybe next year, I can move one of these items to my "accomplishments list. My money's on the cheese car.