I've got a little list

But I decided
not to be so limited,
so I added more.
Things about you,
things about him,
things about her.
Things about them,
and about the world.
Because why should I stop,
when there's more to add?

It was no longer a little list,
and it grew as I added.
The problems here,
the troubles there.
Bigger and bigger,
my list became.

It was just a little list,
now it was a book.
It seemed that everything
had something
that I wanted to change.
How can I get all this done?
I looked, and got sad,
that things were all this bad.

Then I got an idea.
I can't do them all,
especially not at once.
If I tried, I wouldn't
get anything done.
So I trimmed,
and I shrunk,
that huge list of mine.
I reduced it, to things
I can change,
I can affect,
I can influence.
Then I trimmed it some more,
to the ones
I considered
the most important.

I didn't forget all the rest,
no, I still care.
But to try and do too much,
leads to doing too little.

I've got a little list
of things that I can change.
And I'm changing them.

_{(bad) Nodeshell poetry, by The Nodeshell Rescue Team.}

linuxize the company

would take too long, and shed too much blood.

lose weight

I had already had dinner, I did five pushups and I nearly fainted.

talk more to my SO

she was not interested in nethack.

watch the sun play across the fields of God

did I mention that it was 2am ?

node with higher quality

but I WANT level 6, dammit ! and I already have enough XP but not enough nodes ...

obsess less

would I be on Everything if I could avoid obsession ?

brush my teeth

I can do that ...

invest wisely

I would need money first.

spread happiness

everybody in the house was asleep, and already as happy as they could be.

So, the list
having been
cleaned
of obvious impossibilities
unlikely desires
and collision with the status quo
I dedicated
all my energies
to the one task at hand

I brushed my teeth,
with passion
with gusto
with force
and,
with bleeding gums and shiny fillings
went to sleep.