Reverb10 Prompt 11: "Things I don't want in 2011"

December 11 – 11 Things
What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?
(Author: Sam Davidson)

One of the drawbacks of being a few days behind on the Reverb prompts, beyond the feeling of guilt and the compiling procrastination, is having seen other people's responses to the prompts already.  I started to read Sarah's  posting on this prompt before my own but managed to stop before I got too far in.  It's more interesting to see what similarities we come up with independently than to simply agree with someone else's brilliance. 

#1:  Debt -  I am extremely fortunate to not have a mortgage or student loans (currently, could go back to school for some...) weighing on my shoulders.  After I pay off my holiday gift purchases I would like to spend 2011 without debt, as this was the first year that I was debt free and it was very empowering.

#2: Car Trouble - I doubt 2011 will be completely trouble free when it comes to vehicle maintenance, but I'd really enjoy it if everything continued to run mostly right.  The best way to eliminate car trouble is to continue driving carefully and to keep up on my routine maintenance.  I'm pretty good about taking care of my things, not obsessively, but I admit that caring for my car has never been a priority.  I hear it's supposed to be somewhere in the Y chromosome but apparently it's part of my mutation.

#3: Computer Viruses - No one ever needs these.  Let's all not have these.

#4: More Free Time -  Hate me if you want, but the time since college graduation has had a lot of free time, and I think prolonged periods alone make me pretty unhappy.  In 2011 I don't need a break, or time to relax, I need the opposite.  I know so many people would like to have more time for their hobbies.  I either need more hobbies, or more commitments.  I'm writing books for fun...

#5: Serious Injury / Health Concerns - This should be the hope for everyone, and I don't feel selfish for wishing this onto the 11 not in '11 list. I've gotten along fairly well without good health care for a few years now,  I'm fairly content with my health right now and have learned not to over-react to the smallest concerns, so I'd like to see 2011 continue with general good health.  I don't think I'll be healthy for the next sixty years, there might be more organs for young surgeons to practice on, but for the time being, I'll keep eating healthy-ish and visiting the gym as often as one would visit an aging relative and hope this is enough.

#6: Major health complications for family and close friends - I don't think I'll escape this one in 2011, my remaining grandparents are simply too old.  We celebrated the 90th birthday of my Grandpa this year (How did I manage to leave that out of Prompt 9 after all that pondering!?) and my grandmother has had a few trips into the hospital in 2010.  I am at peace with their age and they are both very happy with the lives they've had, so if they pass away this year, it will be sad but not devastating.  Devastating would be losing one of my rat pack brothers or my immediate family members, I try not to ever spend time dwelling on that possibility.  I'll keep treasuring my time with them and hopefully the opportunities will continue.

#7: Political Unrest - I think that the majority of my peers and Americans in my generation were enticed by the message of HOPE in 2008's elections.  Most of us had spent our most adult-formative years with George W. Bush as the President and felt that many of the political developments of that period had made America unpopular with the citizens of other nations.  Perhaps it is just a symptom of our generation to be overly concerned about what others think.  Since the election of Barack Obama, I personally have become less concerned about America's reputation abroad and more concerned about the social and economic flaws in our lives.  I think that almost as many people are as frustrated with the status quo as they were in 2008, and this frustration continues to grow across generations and political beliefs.  I think that President Obama is doing the best that he can, with an abundance of issues that need direction and leadership, and that he has put smart and successful minds into place where he was able to, but my hope is that in 2011 our country finds some unification and direction before the inevitably cut-throat campaigning of 2012.  There's plenty of time for improvement, and I'd be glad to put my efforts behind the answers in exchange for a salary and pension. (Both of which have been frozen at the State and Federal levels, currently.)

#8: Grue -  I like to sleep in the dark.  I think my room is a fairly secure place.  In 2011 I would like to encounter no Grue.

#9: Natural Disasters - Alright, this one is the biggest stretch yet.  We have an AMAZING planet.  It's continued existence is an unsung miracle.  I went to college for eight years (or at least was enrolled to be going) and I don't think I could run the calculations for how to heat, rotate, and angle a planet, figure out which chemical interactions would be non-volatile and self-replenishing, and manage to throw a satellite moon into the mix even if I devoted the rest of my life to it.  Our planet will probably quake a little, it will probably melt in the melty parts, freeze in the freeze parts, and rain in the rainy parts.  I even have a personal philosophy that the human species is grotesquely over-abundant, but I don't want to see a lot of innocent people die to sudden disasters they have no control over and no ability to escape.

#10: Betrayal - I'm starting to struggle. I've always been very bad about thinking about the future.  I would go so far as to call it a critical flaw.  I don't like to hypothesize without supporting evidence.  Betrayals ALWAYS suck though.  There are no good betrayals.  I'm going to go check with wikipedia.  Nope, the internet is backing me up on this one.  Betrayal, wherein a friendship or relationship is broken by an unexpected and unforgivable act, is universally bad.  I don't anticipate any personal ones this year, but I'm one hell of a grudge holder, so let's go ahead and include disappointing minor breaches of trust as well.

#11: Offspring - Sorry kids, I'm not ready for you.  I don't intend to use my own sperm to create babies anyway, but let's just put it on the list as a precaution.  I don't have any god-children for whom I may potentially become responsible for should Dark Wizards come to power and target my friends for opposing them.  Some of my friends have really awesome kids that I'll keep doting on though, it's good practice just in case I feel a little better prepared in 2014 or so.

Alright, there's my list.  If two people comment it will be a new record!