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(A tip of the hat to Tom Lehrer for the title.) This is yet another comment I posted elsewhere first.
The other day I had a minor bout of what-have-I-done-with-my-life. I get those from time to time. I figured we all do, especially around birthday time! I asked my beloved whether he ever got those. He said no.
No? Hmm.
Turns out when he was little he had goals. Go to MIT, start a high tech company. He did them. Check. Done!
(Now he has a similar feeling of "where do I go from here?" So from this moment on, we're in the same boat, in a way.)
Once he said that I realized something. When I was a child I didn't have goals. I had dreams. Most of those dreams I discarded for very sane reasons, many of them having to do with being a girl. (No Blue Angels for me.) But goals and dreams are different. Dreams are safe because you don't have to do anything; you don't have to risk failure. I never got around to making goals, because enough of my dreams simply weren't workable. I learned early that it was a bad idea to risk. (There's the difference between Rob's situation and mine. He knows he can achieve big goals. I "know" I can't.)
Now I have a bunch of discarded broken dreams, no goals achieved, and no one to blame for it butMom myself. (Sure, Mom broke a few of my dreams, but I can't blame her for being right. And it wasn't her job to come up with goals.) Veddy intedesting!
I still have dreams. I haven't fully let go of "be an astronaut", but of course that one's got to go. I'm 38 in three days and I have multiple chronic pain conditions. It's a non-starter. But there are other dreams I could turn into goals...
...if I had the courage. It'll take courage. It was painful enough when all the dreams broke; how much more will it hurt when I try for a goal?
But if I don't find that courage, all I'll have in another 37 years is discarded dreams and no one to blame for it but me. Right? RIGHT!
The other day I had a minor bout of what-have-I-done-with-my-life. I get those from time to time. I figured we all do, especially around birthday time! I asked my beloved whether he ever got those. He said no.
No? Hmm.
Turns out when he was little he had goals. Go to MIT, start a high tech company. He did them. Check. Done!
(Now he has a similar feeling of "where do I go from here?" So from this moment on, we're in the same boat, in a way.)
Once he said that I realized something. When I was a child I didn't have goals. I had dreams. Most of those dreams I discarded for very sane reasons, many of them having to do with being a girl. (No Blue Angels for me.) But goals and dreams are different. Dreams are safe because you don't have to do anything; you don't have to risk failure. I never got around to making goals, because enough of my dreams simply weren't workable. I learned early that it was a bad idea to risk. (There's the difference between Rob's situation and mine. He knows he can achieve big goals. I "know" I can't.)
Now I have a bunch of discarded broken dreams, no goals achieved, and no one to blame for it but
I still have dreams. I haven't fully let go of "be an astronaut", but of course that one's got to go. I'm 38 in three days and I have multiple chronic pain conditions. It's a non-starter. But there are other dreams I could turn into goals...
...if I had the courage. It'll take courage. It was painful enough when all the dreams broke; how much more will it hurt when I try for a goal?
But if I don't find that courage, all I'll have in another 37 years is discarded dreams and no one to blame for it but me. Right? RIGHT!
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Oh, no. I can't relate. Not at all. ;-)
When I was a child I didn't have goals. I had dreams.
That makes a lot of sense in my situation, too. I think when I was little I had the dreams to be what I've now set as my goal(s).
It'll take courage.
Hoo yeah. I'm scared sh*tless. I'm also trying to be realistic and methodical enough to keep those fears at bay.
*hugs*
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*nodnod*. If'n y'ever need a cheerleader, or just an ear, I'm over here.
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Live is short, and you never know how short exactly.
And you'll probably only get one go at this life thiong, so no rehersals.
I don't say: just jump. That would be silly.
But I do say: don't let lack of courage stop you from jumping.
You'll be at least as sorry for the things you haven't done than for the things that went wrong. At least. And probably more.
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Amen. Looking back, that's what I'm most sorry for: the things I didn't do. It makes loads of sense that that's what I'll be most sorry for when I'm eighty and looking back from there.
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1. I can find a way to be happy with just about anything. As a result, I find goal-setting very difficult.
2. Whenever I've managed to actually figure out what I want and make it a goal, I've achieved it.
To me, #2 is scarier than #1. I'm almost afraid to make something a goal unless I'm absolutely sure I want it.
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1. I will probably have the same emotional balance between happy and unhappy whether I get what I want or not. Beyond the short term, things outside me don't seem to *make* me happy or unhappy.
2. Whenever I've come up with something I strongly wanted, it's either been obviously impossible to achieve it (once or twice) or when I was very young someone I trusted explained to me why it was impossible to achieve it (many times).
Both our versions of #2 are pretty scary.
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But I think you've nailed it with "knowing" what you can achieve. I don't think about whether I *can* do any technical thing that interests me - I think about whether I can make the time and be organized about it. That's what I make lists for. It certainly helps that I don't generally have physical limitations getting in the way - not that I don't have the limits, I'm overweight and have bad knees, it's just that for things where those matter, *boredom* usually kicks in much sooner than pain, so it doesn't get in the way. (Another way to put it - it's not that I can't imagine finishing a marathon, I can't imagine *starting* one :-) But it means I haven't ever been swatted down by such things, which probably makes a big difference. Maybe it helps a bit to focus on things accomplished, in terms of "yeah, I want more of that", than predicted failure?
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But any project or goal involving other human beings hinges, at least in part, on their reactions to me or to my work. Other people's reactions are not things I can control. And anything involving my physical body is a loss at this point; I can't control that either.
But it means I haven't ever been swatted down by such things, which probably makes a big difference. Maybe it helps a bit to focus on things accomplished, in terms of "yeah, I want more of that", than predicted failure?
Probably. O'course, previous minor successes involved standing up; I am not (yet) able to focus on those without seeing mainly my current limitations. Sadly, I'm not sure there's much I perceive as "worth doing" that involves my brain and *not* my body and *no* other people. That's worth some brainstorming.
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Well, you could say both outcomes fell short of being dream results, but I did it. Even earned money editing and translating medieval texts for a while.
Now my goal is to finally get over the magic 1000 line - participants to
Which reminds me: would you consider
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I wonder if one of my problems with "goals" is that I don't really see them as goals once they're done. NaNo 2003 and 2004 were goals, in a sense, and I did them, but now I don't think of them when someone asks about goals. (I admit they're small things, not "what did you do with your life?" sorts of things.)
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I never thought about it that way. I wonder how much of that is culturally gender-based. When I was a preteen I had a dream of being a veterinarian. My family laughed at me, and warned, "That doesn't mean you can just give the animals a shot and pet them, you know. You'd have to operate on them. You can't stand blood. You wouldn't be able to do it." A lie repeated often enough is accepted as the truth. I mentioned it less and less frequently. By the time I was 13 or 14, I "realized" that I didn't want to be a veterinarian, and gave up on it. My parents wanted me to be a teacher. Naturally the one thing I never wanted to be was a teacher.
goals and dreams are different. Dreams are safe because you don't have to do anything; you don't have to risk failure.
That's one of the most profound things I've heard in a long time, CJ. That explains why I never had goals when I was young either, except for being a mother, and moving away from New York City. The first was a given in my era, and the second was pretty simple to accomplish.
But if I don't find that courage, all I'll have in another 37 years is discarded dreams and no one to blame for it but me. Right? RIGHT!
RIGHT. Since my plans of having an FBO somewhere died when Tom did, 20 years ago Wednesday, I haven't been able to identify any long-term goals, so I just drifted along. I did a few things, but currently I'm stuck in mid-life with no idea of what I want to be when I grow up.
It's easy to give advice. Set some short-term goals and accomplish them, to show yourself you can. Set some medium-term goals and identify the concrete steps you can take toward them, and start doing them. Figure out a long term goal, break it into very small parts and do them one at a time. It's hard to do, but if you don't, you'll end up like me, just drifting along with the current. Figure out where you want to go -- make sure it's on the river you're on so you can get there (being an astronaut is on a different river) -- and then start paddling!
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I never thought about it that way. I wonder how much of that is culturally gender-based.
In my family, at least, HUGE amounts. This is a deep and endless wellspring of rage within me. Just think what I could have done if I hadn't been told, in my formative years, over and over by people I trusted, that I couldn't. Just think what I could have done if I didn't live in a world where at least fifty percent of what those people told me was RIGHT, because I was a girl. I could have been... almost like a real human being.
Maybe next lifetime.
20 years ago Wednesday
Ouch. *big hugs*
I did a few things, but currently I'm stuck in mid-life with no idea of what I want to be when I grow up.
Me too. Given that I'm going to remain female and in pain and probably with high medical bills for the rest of my life, what the hell ELSE can I do with my time? There's still got to be a lot out there, and it's up to me to find it.
It's easy to give advice. Set some short-term goals and accomplish them, to show yourself you can. Set some medium-term goals and identify the concrete steps you can take toward them, and start doing them. Figure out a long term goal, break it into very small parts and do them one at a time.
Right. I think I've done those short-term goals, although I admit I tend to stop thinking of small things as "goals" once they're done. Gotta remind myself that I CAN achieve small things. Then the courage and the risk: identify something big that I want.
So.
What's something big that YOU want?
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I reckon if you worked on it you might get a slot flying Space Ship One
or it's successors.
It's just a overblown glider with a large sustainer motor right?
Actually isn't it registered as an experimental glider? You are probably
legally qualified to fly it already ;)
I for one haven't quite given up on the dream promised me by that
"You Will Go to the Moon" childrens book I had.
I didn't start gliding till I was 38. In just a few years I've managed to achieve
a few things I am proud of, Gold Badge, Diamond Goal, Unofficial 500km flight,
top novice pilot trophy at the state championships.
At 38 you can still achieve things if you want to.
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(I have Silver altitude, and that's it.) :)
I reckon if you worked on it you might get a slot flying Space Ship One
or it's successors.
That's a good point. I won't qualify for NASA's astronaut program, but the possibility of commercially- or privately-funded astronauts is becoming more and more real.
At 38 you can still achieve things if you want to.
Absolutely -- I just need to find goals I'm passionate about that don't require things past my physical limitations. 38 isn't the big deal (except if I'm applying to NASA); my health is the big deal. So... fly aerobatics in competition? Get a novel published? Learn Swahili? Swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco? Something. :-)
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