Three Goals for 2020

This is the next-to-last day of 2020. This morning as I was writing in my journal, something I try to do most days, I decided to see what I had written at this time last year. I found there three goals that I hoped to accomplish during this year that is near its end.

1. To read through the entire Bible in the Douay Rheims translation. The DRB is a translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English. The New Testament was published in 1582, and the Old Testament in 1609-1610, before the King James Version in 1611.
2. To endeavor to walk 10,000 steps each day, using my trusty Fitbit and taking advantage of my treadmill if the weather didn’t permit outside walking.
3. To lose five pounds a month over the course of the year resulting in the loss of 60 pounds.

How did I do with my goals in a year that was the “gift” that just kept on giving: working from home 12 weeks due to COVID, losing my job and doing free-lance work for five months, and then moving from New Jersey to Wisconsin to take on new role?

Let’s start with #3. The weight loss thing really suffered with being homebound, especially with COVID snacks. So I ended the year right where I began it. Makes sense, but it was a goal frustrated.

Then there’s the walking goal. Now being homebound or having bad weather did nothing to keep me from walking 10,000 steps each day. How did I do? With today and tomorrow to go, I attained 10,000 steps a total of 40 days! Ouch!!! And two of those days were the days I moved out of our apartment in New Jersey and the day we moved into our apartment in Wisconsin. So I had less than an 11% success rate! And I sold my treadmill when I moved! And I lost my Fitbit! Any other excuses?

So how did I do on the first goal of reading through the whole Bible? and for me that means 73 books, not 66! I had a chart that I used to mark off each day that I downloaded from The New Saint Thomas Institute and that helped me keep on track. So here’s the final tally: tomorrow morning, December 31, I will read 2 Maccabees 13—15, Sirach 51, and Revelation 22. I will achieve my goal of reading through the entire Bible in the Douay Rheims translation!

I really enjoyed and benefitted from this exercise. And I am reminded of words of St. Paul to Timothy: For bodily exercise is profitable to little: but godliness is profitable to all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. (1 Timothy 4:8, DRB)

While I wished I had accomplished all my goals, I am thankful that I made good on the first goal. With it came a growing faithfulness in prayer and consistency in the powerful weapon of praying the Rosary. I know that is what sustained me in all of the exigencies that presented themselves in 2020.