Notes to self: What next?

I spend about 30 per cent of my waking hours writing "to-do lists". I love them. Just listing them out makes me feel as though I've bettered myself and done something productive.

Most of my to-do lists involve quite long-term goals. My head is never in the present; I never think about what I have to do from day to day (this is why I am so disorganised, perhaps). My friends always tell me that I stop listening to them halfway through a conversation and go all glassy-eyed. I honestly don't realise I switch off.

But instead of being there with my friends or at work, my head is firmly in the future. Despite that, I have very little idea of what it is exactly that I want to be doing in the future. Writing, travelling, living comfortably and being happy. That's as far as I've got.

My lists generally involve very vague concepts, not achievable, measured goals. They'll say things such as "accelerate career", "be more confident" and "get stronger and fitter". But how do you know that you've achieved them? You can always say that you could boost your career, or be a bit more assertive. So, instead of achieving goals, I am floundering around, making ends meet and living a little bit of an unusual life; no set working hours, no real routine and no direction.

Sometimes it's the best kind of lifestyle I can think of. Other times, such as this week, I panic that it's not very practical. For instance, when I had to go to hospital a couple of weeks ago for my head injury, I had no insurance. I was supposed to stay in hospital longer, but I just couldn't afford to.

I also went to a friend's five-day-long birthday celebration in Singapore and Bintan, Indonesia. It was brilliant fun, but chatting with him and his friends — who were climbing the career ladder, thinking of buying property and really creating a solid foundation for their lives — made me a bit worried about my haphazard life.

I don't have a foundation. I have nothing to show for anything except an impressive collection of photo albums on Facebook. I have no idea how to take my career to the next level, because I work for myself. If I could give myself a promotion, I would. My job title would include letters such as MD or CEO. But I'd still not earn any more. If I wanted a house, my bank manager would double up laughing at my request for a mortgage.

I've never been confused about what I want to do in my life before, but now the confusion has hit hard. I tweeted the other day about some of my goals — to earn more, get fitter and learn Thai. A guy I know tweeted back: "Yeah, and read the classics, learn an instrument and write a book." Err … yes. I suppose we all have the same ideas about self-improvement, especially as we creep closer to those milestone birthdays when we inevitably start measuring our progress against our peers.

I wonder if any of us ever feels like we're good just as we are. Or is it just the most arrogant, dislikeable people who think that? As happy as I am, I always think there must be more happiness out there. In every happy moment, there is always a panicky feeling: "Is this as good as it gets? I thought it would feel better than this."

Perhaps it's just human nature to be greedy and want more, more, more for ourselves. Or perhaps if we ever got to the point where there was nothing to write on the to-do list, we'd have lost hope in life and ourselves, and I'm definitely nowhere near that point.