When Mozart was my age, he'd been dead for three years.

[cjsmith]

(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 but Mom 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!

Comments

[sunnydale47.livejournal.com]

When I was a child I didn't have goals. I had dreams.

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!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

"When I was a child I didn't have goals. I had dreams."

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?