Sometimes I think about goals...And how to achieve them. I am the kind of person who prefers to have short-term goals rather than long-term ones... I admire people who have the ability to clearly visualize what they want in life but I am not one of those people. If I am asked what I want to do in life... I am always thrown for a loop. I suppose what I want is to have a happy and fulfilling life but that just sounds so random. There is no guarantee that life will be happy... and of course there would be times when life would be a disaster so that goal just sounds fake and implausible. As for fulfilling... I guess that makes sense for people who have figured out exactly what makes them tick. As for me... here I am standing on the edge of 30 and I'm not certain what would make my life fulfilling.
Its strange because as a kid if somebody asked what I wanted to do in life... my instant response would be "I want to be a teacher". Of course the "teacher" would be interchangeable with many other professions depending on my current obsession. I guess that is what led to all the confusion and I ended up doing exactly what the majority of students in India do... engineering. It helped that I was very interested in Computer Science and also that I am a master of short-term goals (a little exaggeration never hurts!). At that time my goal was to do well in class and I succeeded in it. But when it came to a long term vision for my life, I was still undecided. When companies came to interview at our college placement, my immediate goal was to get a job. I followed the flock to an IT company and again, concentrated on short term tasks without a clue about where I was going with this. When my work became monotonous, I again set myself the goal of getting a new job. It was tough but I managed to do it, concentrating on immediate gains and not what would be a defined life goal. Life continued until I quit that job and was faced with an uncertain future. For the first time, I had to decide whether I wanted to continue my career or take a break. Well... the word "decide" is open to debate... I left it to fate and hoped for the best! Finally, I started working again... and even though my goals are still very short-term, I am beginning to get a clearer idea of what I would want to do some years down the line. Maybe that short break, scary as it was, opened me up to other options apart from the one I had always pursued. Maybe I am finally growing up?
Relationship goals are even tougher to pursue. I love easily and frequently and it has led me down the road to heartbreak many times in the past. Not just in romantic relationships, I have had the same experience in all my relationships. Of course, I have also hit the jackpot many times! Since I am reflecting on goals, I don't know what personal goals are set by people who seem to have amazing relationships in their life. As a fairly introverted person, I find it difficult to express feelings even if they are present in me. Somewhere that inability to express gets misconstrued as aloofness, rudeness and leads to misunderstandings. I doubt if my goal has ever been to hurt people intentionally but because I often miss the bigger picture, I'm sure it has happened a few times. But the thing I can say with absolute certainty is this - if I have been faced with a choice between relationships and anything else, I have always chosen relationships. Sometimes with disastrous results, sometimes as a blessing in disguise. In the process of acknowledging my failure at setting long-term personal goals, I am striving to identify things I have been doing wrong, actions that could be misunderstood. Growing up makes us more open to criticism and being able to look at mistakes without romanticizing them.
Of course, I will still continue to set my short-term goals and work towards fulfilling them but the one thing I would do differently is keep my mind open for what I want in the long run. It may or may not be a successful exercise, but that is something we'll just have to wait and see!
Relationship goals are even tougher to pursue. I love easily and frequently and it has led me down the road to heartbreak many times in the past. Not just in romantic relationships, I have had the same experience in all my relationships. Of course, I have also hit the jackpot many times! Since I am reflecting on goals, I don't know what personal goals are set by people who seem to have amazing relationships in their life. As a fairly introverted person, I find it difficult to express feelings even if they are present in me. Somewhere that inability to express gets misconstrued as aloofness, rudeness and leads to misunderstandings. I doubt if my goal has ever been to hurt people intentionally but because I often miss the bigger picture, I'm sure it has happened a few times. But the thing I can say with absolute certainty is this - if I have been faced with a choice between relationships and anything else, I have always chosen relationships. Sometimes with disastrous results, sometimes as a blessing in disguise. In the process of acknowledging my failure at setting long-term personal goals, I am striving to identify things I have been doing wrong, actions that could be misunderstood. Growing up makes us more open to criticism and being able to look at mistakes without romanticizing them.
Of course, I will still continue to set my short-term goals and work towards fulfilling them but the one thing I would do differently is keep my mind open for what I want in the long run. It may or may not be a successful exercise, but that is something we'll just have to wait and see!
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