my 2000th day

and then he said, "We might, for example, set a goal of blogging once a day just in case, serendipitously, something beautiful strikes us that day."

a goal is an end-point, a place you want to be. olympic speed skater is a goal. olymic gold medal winning speed skater is a goal. straight-A student. college graduate. entrepreneurial restaurateur. daily blogger. a goal is a level, an accomplishment, a milestone. a goal is concrete and measurable.

"my goal is to be a good mother." see, that's meaningless. there's no way to measure that. what is good mothering and how do we know if she's gotten there? while not getting into the myriad and controversial definitions of good mothering, let's just look at the difference between "my goal is to be a good mother" and "my goal is to have my kids at school on time every day". a goal must be quantifiable.

what else? the goal of getting the kiddos to school on time is fairly basic. the goal of getting your child into harvard by the time he's 8 is unattainable, the bar is too high. the goal of not beating your children daily is ridiculous because it should be a given, the bar is too low. a goal must be attainable yet challenging.

quantifiable, attainable, challenging goals are steps on the path to personal growth. however...

modern society is obsessed with goals. where do you see youself in five years? what is the next promotion you're working towards? when do you plan to retire and how will you fund your retirement? when you graduate high school, are you going on to college, and if so where, and what will you major in, and when will you graduate, and what job will you seek?

yikes!

the problem with goals is that they shut down opportunity. when you're on that path in the woods, and you come to that fork, if you're too focused on your goal, you might not even see the fork. if you see the fork, the choice, maybe you'll take it and maybe you won't, but how can you live a rich life if you don't even see the fork at all?

the value of goals is that if the allure is strong enough, you will keep your eyes on the prize and not be distracted by every pretty shiney thing you see. if you are on a strong goal-path, decisions fall away because you always choose the goal-path.

i like to imagine i live serendipitously, open to opportunity, unfettered by goals. i know it's not completely true. i have a goal to be faithful to my old man, a goal to retain job security, a goal to maintain my health. these goal-paths preclude other paths, sure, i can see that. but who would want to go down those useless paths anyway??