Is a goal-oriented existence the result of a horribly broken capitalist brain? Is self-betterment a trap? Maybe! And maybe again! But how else to make meaning from this long, monotonous flop on Earth, here in this post-Industrial, pre-Singularity historical epoch, but to set sights on some distant shore and then trudge achingly towards it? You know what they say: love the trudge, and you’ll never work a day in your life. I, for one, have the lofty goal in 2023 to become progressively impish. Wish me luck, and read on for an eyeful of Inspiring Content (I-Con) from our nation’s premiere toonsmiths.
-Sofia
Ellis Rosen
What’s the secret to getting more work done during the day? It’s all about visualizing your goals. Make a list of what you want to get done that day and memorize it. Rip up the paper and close your eyes. Picture the goals in your head. See them in your mind's eye. Take your time and really focus.
OK, now open them.
Was your goal the Eight of Hearts?
-That was an excerpt from my new book, The Productivity of Magic: Now You See Me, Now You’re Getting to Work!
Jason Katzenstein
Achieving a goal can be so nice, but is it everything? I would humbly submit that it is not. And that if you fixate on how once you get that boulder to the top of the hill that all of your other problems will disappear, you’re cruising for an existential disappointment, dear reader.
An existential disappointment is okay though!!! You’re learning. You’re growing. You can celebrate your achievement without trying to make it solve everything that’s going wrong with your week. It was a long hill and that boulder is heavy and you should be proud. I’m sure proud of you.
Amy Kurzweil
I have been working on a very long book for a very long time. I started this book six and half years ago, the book is 316 pages long and for the past 16 months I’ve been tasked with finishing the final drawings, which take about six hours per page. I have 82 pages left to draw, and 67 days to draw them. Not that I’m counting or anything.
So obviously I want to finish my book. But I also have another important goal. Because of this drawing-a-big-book thing I have going on, and also because of my general personality and lifestyle, sometimes I let important life-things fall off my radar. For example, my driver’s license expired in October, and when I went to the DMV to casually renew it, I failed both the written driving test and my vision test – the latter because I haven’t been to an eye doctor in five years and the former because DONTGETMESTARTED on the insanity that is the rules of driving and the expectation that I have committed to memory what every kind of painted curb mean and exactly which period of a rain cycle makes the roads most slick…
It’s all to say, like the third car above (in my first cartoon ever published with The New Yorker), I also have an educational goal. I resolve to study for the Driver’s License Knowledge test, so that I, a late-stage myopic, can saunter into the DMV with my glasses now -.75 stronger, tell a machine that the roads are slickest during the first rain after a dry spell, pass the dumb test, and – mark your calendar – be able to legally drive myself to my book launch in October 2023, unless the self-driving cars can get me there first.
Navied Mahdavian
I’ve been thinking a lot about goals lately. It’s something I do around the New Year. Quirky, I know. New Year resolutions are basically bullet points of everything you’re bad at. You look back at the precious year, and then criticize yourself.
And then you tell everyone about it. Quirky, I know.
Hilary Campbell
If I were a scientist, this would be at the top of my to-do list.
Sofia Warren
A goal is a wish your heart makes, when you internet-stalk your rivals.
ToonStack NewsStack
Hilary’s guided journal, What Did I Do Today? , comes out TOMORROW! And she will be teaching two cartoon workshops in Manhattan this month! Sign up today!
Amy Kurzweil teaches cartoon classes on Patreon! Sign up now to get the recording of every past class!
Join Kendra Allenby’s new online drawing class in January: the Lunchtime Sketchbook Hour
Sofia Warren’s Radical: My Year with a Socialist Senator is out and available to order here. (And it was just named one of the best graphic novels of 2022 by Forbes!)
Pre-order Ellis Rosen’s new book, Dink!: Pickleball Facts, Fictions, and Cartoons
Be sure to check out Shelby Lorman’s newsletter, Please Clap!
The same goes for Sofia Warren’s advice newsletter, You’re Doing Great!
See more cartoons from Ellis Rosen’s weekly Junk Drawer!
Amy K., in California no one can hear you scream.
I’m with Ellis!😂