1. To remember your name. The other day, I forgot a friend-of-a-friend’s name, she nearly bit my head off. Understandably.

2. To stop being an @#$%^&*ole. Most people, I get on with brilliantly. Some people can’t stand me. I feel awful about that, and would love to stop irritating others. As they say in Buddhism: “If you want to be happy, think first of others. If you want to be unhappy, think first of yourself.” Perhaps it’s because I’m a bit alpha, or I’m an only child raised by a poor, but still doting, wonderful mother—in any case, I’ve turned out to be a voracious, driven, self-motivated creative force. That all sounds nice, unless you’re trying to date me, in which case you dump me sooner than fruit-gone-bad. (Knock on wood).

3. For everyone to turn odd nooks and crannies and corners of our parking lots and medians into xeriscaped landscapes and mini-gardens. We could cut global warming significantly if we all used white roofing and changed even 10 percent of our too-hot parking lots and manmade fake nature-lite landscapes into God’s green earth, once more.

4. To read one page of this each day.

5. For everyone to meditate for even two or three minutes each morning, right after they wake up, stretch out, brush their teeth and before they make coffee and check their email/get stressed/make plans.

6. To live with my mom and grandma. They’re both getting old (as am I!), and I miss them being a part of my lives! I’ve never been much of a correspondent, though if I could get them on Skype…

7. For Nuclear War to be made illegal. The subtle, yet substantial change in our world-view that would result? We’d all start thinking about future generations, instead of (rationally) assuming that some random terrorist will get his hands on a bomb at some point and start a domino war.

8. To figure out how to make good money doing what I love—through my talk show videos and my web site. I know it’s not much of a follow-up after “No Nukes,” but Buddhism, in which I was trained growing up, is all about connecting heaven (vision, big ideas) and earth (practicality). If I can’t pay my mortgage, I can’t be of benefit to others, run for City Council, get married, have curly-headed trouble-makin’ children, or…

9. Get a craigslisted road bike. I’ve never had one. I would love to be able to ride up into the mountains, zoom around. Since I finally unpluggged from my car a year back, it’s been great. Still, though I’ve got a nice Masi, it’s slow when compared with the speed demons I see between Boulder’s shaven legs.

10. Be of benefit. It’s the only thing that motivates me to get up in the morning (other than coffee): whether it’s through my Walk the Talk Show, or politics, or elephantjournal.com itself, or my upcomin’ Dharma Brat book…I’d like to have a go at helping the world help itself, and have some fun doing so along the way. I’ve been given a lot via my root guru, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, my mom, Linda Lewis, and my sangha, or community. I’m 35, now, and it’s high time to give back.