Goals (Part 4 - Reader Comments)
Before continuing my own discussion of Goals, I’m going to include some reader comments I received recently on this topic. If you missed Parts 1, 2 and 3 of this series of messages, go to www.YourSpirutalJourney.net .
Reader Comments:
“When I was 16 years old, I was a sophomore in high school and I had two goals that were independent from each other. One was to become an architect and the other was to join the Navy. Two months after my 16th birthday, I was in a bicycle accident that left me a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down.
Needless to say, my goals of that able-bodied teenager were shattered. Over the next several months I did not have any goals, just the desire to live. That certainly wasn’t the goal but a necessity.
During that time two things began entering my mind. The first was my faith and spirituality, and the second was understanding my future and the direction I was heading. I first had to understand my faith and spirituality in a far different context but at least I had something to base it on. I have a strong spiritual upbringing that was not difficult to rekindle. It wasn’t easy and even today I must pause to consider my thoughts and actions.
The second was far more difficult. Every day was a chore to survive mentally and physically. So as I became aware enough to face this challenge I needed to discover a path to survival. I knew it was going to be a long road. I thought about setting goals such as getting out of the ICU, getting off the respirator, surgeries, rehabilitation and the big one, getting home. This was far too overwhelming so my answer to this was simple. Live! You might think that that answer is too simple. My motto became “one day at a time” and that’s how I survived then and how I live now.
If you would like to call it a goal, that’s fine. You might say it’s all encompassing. It is and I will explain how it satisfies me. Being a quadriplegic I could certainly anticipate, strategize and hope my life would go according to plan, but that hasn’t always been the case so what I have done is just live.
Sure, I have created a plan. After coming home from the hospital I planned to graduate high school and I did. I planned to attend college. Well, I didn’t attend but I did it online. I planned on practicing law — as it turned out I’m not.
I had no idea whether I would ever get married. I am. I had no idea whether I would own a home. I do. These were never goals that I set. If you truly wanted me to offer you what my goals are, they are these: be true to myself, live a happy life, understand my wrongdoings and believe in my faith.”
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“I couldn’t let this one go. You make many contentious points, some of which I tend to agree with. You are right when you say that there is always some unknown in our universe, or indeed the physical universe. Plato said that knowledge is divine and, to my mind, this indicates that some things we will never know.
You point out many people achieve success without goals. I don’t know of anyone who achieved success without some kind of focus. Most people I know set goals and regard them as a destination. It gives them something to focus on. If you look at Tiger Woods, for example, you see an individual who has extraordinary focus. Whether he was born with it or not is not important. It was his focus and the hard work he has put in over many years that enabled him to achieve at the level he has.
Any being has, as a fundamental purpose, to survive. It is how you view survival that has a bearing. If having three square meals a day and a roof over your head is your idea of survival you would be right. But if you want a higher level of survival then you must have a direction. Goals tend to provide that.
I use goals as tools to focus in the direction I wish to go. This gives me a real sense of purpose, and life without purpose is, to my mind, no life at all.
So, perhaps goals used as a tool to give focus and purpose, are supportive. I do not believe we are on this planet just to drift. If you look at the contributors to civilization all down through history, it is the individuals with purpose who have given us what is great about the world. Wastrels, talented or not, who make no distribution are as stones hitting a pond. They make a minor splash then disappear, and the pond is as if they had never existed.
The great unknown in the universe is PURPOSE and whatever device people use to gain purpose is fine with me. We eventually must all come to the realization that we are, we simply are. Whether we want to do something to promote survival beyond our own narrow confines is a decision each of us must make.”
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“Have you ever made an intention to do something and then set about doing it? During this exercise you realize that you have gone about it in the totally wrong manner but the result has been right. HINDSIGHT?
What I’m trying to say is so long as your goals are set for the right reasons, that intention is PURE, achievement or success is purely the choice of the creator. He alone has the power to make us achieve our goals.”
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“I believe it is possible to set goals with faith. Just because we set goals does not mean that we have to have fear or turmoil. As a stay at home mom I have to say goals are important to me. They don’t define my life but they provide structure to my loose world. I am blessed to have so much time to ponder the universe and all its glory, however goals help keep me from floating away.
I like to feel purposeful in my life. I think one of the societal issues we see a lot of today is the lack of purpose in people’s lives. I think people can set goals without purpose, a.k.a. stuff. I believe we need to, by design, have purpose for our life with the knowledge that through that the details will take care of themselves. Not that we aren’t responsible for ourselves but that in adding value to the universe the universe will provide. I think it is not so much contradiction in words as in interpretation.
You know I have played the goal setting game. I have written out my financial wishes in present tense. I have written out promotion titles on specific dates. I have seen some come true and let others go. I have evolved through this process. I have to say I don’t worry much about those things anymore. There are still things I would like to have and accomplish, I’m just not as attached to them.
Also I know those things are going to change. There really isn’t anything I need to have that I don’t have. We always have enough even when we are sure we won’t. We always make it through and get by. Perversely the less I strive for the new car, the wood floors, the clothes and what ever else chooses to float through my mind, the more financial freedom and abundance we seem to have.
Goals can give direction. Joy comes from achieving goals congruent with purpose. I love to be used for the purpose of excellence. I strive only to do the best I can with what I have been blessed with. To give to the world as much as I can at this moment and weep with joy over all the world has shared with me.
I wish to not take for granted the painful lessons or ever turn a blind eye to the tiniest of joys. I pray to meet my fellow man on the street with a smile and the courage to truly see him. I hope to never forget the strength a simple touch can give and never to be afraid to reach out and share that contact. I glory in the beauty in all that is; even in the places it is hardest to see. There are no mistakes, so if I fall off course it is only to learn a lesson I needed to learn.
Goals are a game we play to define time. Goals help us define our worth. In the end they are as much an illusion as separation, but I believe through goal setting we start to define our purpose and can ultimately break down the false definitions of ourselves. They are just a tool.”
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I will continue my discussion of Goals in the next issue.
– Jeff Keller