My family lives a comfortable but not especially extravagant life, and while there are certainly some material things we'd yet like to acquire, we're well set with the basics and more. There may be various things that need fixing in our house, but we've achieved the big goal of having a house at all. My wife and I will surely seek further professional development and fulfillment, but we've established our careers.

    With some of the big material categories essentially taken care of, there's a further challenge: how we approach setting non-material goals and priorities, and make time in the juggle to make them happen.

    It's not as simple a task as it might first appear. As we make our way through the paces of our work and home lives, it's easy to downplay or put off things that have nothing to do with keeping on schedule or paying the bills. For me, one goal that's been on the back burner for years is returning to writing short fiction. I was never going to make a living at it or win any awards, but until shortly after college it was a pursuit I greatly enjoyed. I would have to take active steps to carve out time for it now─and so far, I haven't even really taken the time to think about how to do it, let alone actually done it.

    There's an endless array of possible goals─doing more hands-on charity work, spending more truly connected time with one's spouse or one's kids, doing amateur study in a fascinating if impractical field.

    我的家庭生活很舒適，但并不算特別奢侈。雖然還有些物質上的東西是我們想得到的，但我們已經擁有生活中所有的必需品，甚至還有些不那么必須的。或許我們的房子里有這樣那樣的東西需要修補，但畢竟我們已經實現(xiàn)了擁有一所房子的大目標。妻子和我當然還會在職業(yè)上追求更大的發(fā)展和滿足感，但我們的事業(yè)已經奠定了一定基礎。

    雖然一些大的物質目標已經達到，但還有更進一步的挑戰(zhàn)，那就是：我們該如何制訂非物質的目標和選擇輕重緩急，并在忙碌的工作和日常生活之余擠出時間來實現(xiàn)這些目標。

    這聽上去可能簡單，但實際上并非如此。在一步步完成工作和家庭生活各個環(huán)節(jié)的同時，我們很容易忽視甚至推延那些和日常日程或費用不相干的事。比如，多年來我排在非緊要位置的一個計劃是重新開始寫作短篇小說。我從沒打算過以此謀生或得個什么獎，但直到大學畢業(yè)后的一段時間里我都樂于此道。現(xiàn)在我必須采取積極步驟擠出時間來做這件事，我從未真正花時間來考慮怎么著手，更別說實際采取行動了。

    能想到的希望實現(xiàn)的目標可以列出數(shù)不清的一長串，比如更多地直接參與慈善活動、花更多時間真正跟配偶或孩子在一起、業(yè)余時間對某個有趣但可能不太實際的領域進行研究……等等等等。