Give Up Goals

Wanting to go
is not the same as having
some place to go.
To climb without a goal
is to climb forever.

You don’t have to convince me that goals are important. I know, it is impossible to succeed with a goal you don’t even have. But is there a point where you just stop with the lofty goals, that you give up on ever achieving big important things, and just accept life as it is? Is there a time when you exchanged you goal to be President, or an astronaut, or Pulitzer Prize winning poet, and instead have goals like: I would like a sandwich.

Seriously, I’m almost 60, I have two knee replacements, and a total shoulder replacement, and I weigh way too much. It would be absolutely insane for me to have a goal of being a fireman, or an astronaut. As you age, as things change me physically and permanently, I start shutting doors on past goals.

Perhaps I’m not actually giving up on my goals. It could be I’m just giving up on my wishes.

I’d like to have been a doctor. But not really. I hate math. I didn’t have the confidence to take chemistry. I don’t like being around whiny sick people. Oddly, I don’t have a problem being a whiny sick person. Actually, I guess I’m still right, because I don’t like myself when I’m whiny and sick.

Perhaps the question I’m worrying with is this: Do you get to a place in your life when you can dispense with making goals? I understand that when you feel stuck and have no idea what to do, that is the time to make some goals and to formulate a plan to implement your goals. But another thing I’m wondering is this: Is there ever a time in life when the goals you once had need to discarded (if you are to have a grasp on reality)?

Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be. ~Henry David Thoreau

In the Thoreau quote you get the image that goals make you what you want to become.

Adults are always meeting little kids and 9 times out of 10 one of the questions the adult asks the kid is this: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I heard someone say that the reason adults ask little kids what they want to be when they grow up, is because the adults are looking for ideas.

I’ve been there all my life. I’ve never figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I’ve never actually created a grown up’s goal for anything.

It is more important to know where you are going than to get there quickly. Do not mistake activity for achievement. ~Mabel Newcomber

That is what I did! I mistook activity for achievement. I did
lots of stuff, I tried lots of things, but because I had no clearly defined
goal, I wasn’t going anywhere, I was just doing stuff.

At 59 and heading toward 60 it may be time to give up on the ole, what I want to be, stuff. Is it ever OK to just give up, and not bother with goals? At some point you realize you missed the boat, your ship has sailed, and the only goals left to make have to do with occupying yourself until there is no more self to occupy.