Life is often about goals - places you want to see, milestones you want to reach, dreams you want to live.
Of late, however, I am having trouble figuring out where I want to head. Not because I am not moving but because I have set my goals so far away that I am unable to sense if I am heading in the right direction. Like the beautiful moon, glowing bright and peaceful, so far away in the sky, my dreams too seem far out in the future. So far out that despite my continuous movement, I am unable to judge my progress.
Without the soft foot falls of success around the corner, without the whooshing sound of deadlines, without the deafening roar of failure and without the long rants with friends and family - somehow - my mind is drowning in its own voice. It confuses self assurance with pride, self doubt with fear, failure with lack of trying and confusion with weakness. Nothing I say is clear enough, because somewhere, in another corner of my mind, there is a voice that is comparing and contrasting.
Everything I wanted seems so far away that every direction of approach looks equally right or equally wrong...
Is it possible that no matter which way you go, you will find happiness if you look in the right place? Or is it just something people tell themselves when they let go of their dreams? Is it sensible and courageous to walk away from the uncertainties of life or is it just fear that drives us to the folds of the familiar?
I guess, this is where it would help to set small goals but how do you set aside those big dreams you cherished all your life? How do you celebrate the pit-stops as milestones because the race is not over till it is... Right?
But then, if you keep racing all your life, when do you stop and enjoy it all?
Perhaps, I am parsing it all too fine but I am having trouble just letting go and letting life find a way. Somehow, for the girl who made her own fortune despite all the hurdles, this phase of inaction and limbo has been a little too drawn out. Perhaps for that girl of 9, who knew she wanted to be a scientist like Marie Curie, the lack of certainty and conviction is unusual and unnerving. And perhaps, in the past two decades, that little girl has just grown tired of fighting - tooth and nail - for every success and every opportunity. And that is why, today, she is just looking for the path of least resistance...
Whatever it may be, I certainly don't have the answers and it is at times like this that I wish that my myopic eyes had the benefit of age, foresight and a good telescope.... ;)
2 comments:
"Is it possible that no matter which way you go, you will find happiness if you look in the right place? Or is it just something people tell themselves when they let go of their dreams? Is it sensible and courageous to walk away from the uncertainties of life or is it just fear that drives us to the folds of the familiar?
I guess, this is where it would help to set small goals but how do you set aside those big dreams you cherished all your life? How do you celebrate the pit-stops as milestones because the race is not over till it is... Right?
But then, if you keep racing all your life, when do you stop and enjoy it all?"
To fall back on a cliche that I think true: It isn't about waiting for the clouds to pass, but about learning to dance in the rain.
Carry happiness with you, and you will find it even in uncertainty. Embrace self-doubt, because on the other side of it is an answer, whether a yes or a no. (Don't have expectations of what the answer should be.)
Setting closer goals does not mean letting go of the big ones. When you train for a marathon, you don't despair that you couldn't run 26 miles the first day. You rejoice in your capacity to run one, and the sense of becoming stronger as you train, and running faster and longer each day. This joy does not diminish the enormity of the 26.2. And if after all the training you find yourself hurt and incapable of running ever again, take heart in the fact that you tried, and stretched farther than you thought possible before you trained. If the smaller goals don't take you nearer the big goals, so what?
Thank you for the thoughts... ;)
" If the smaller goals don't take you nearer the big goals, so what?"
That is the one thought that I wish I could embrace whole heartedly. I honestly do try to but it is difficult in the face of constant pressure from inside and outside especially when you are not absolutely convinced about what you are doing.
But yes, one can't stop trying and I am not going to either. It is just that such a 'fuzzy' and undefined state of mind doesn't work very well for someone like me.. who has always known so far what she wanted and where she was heading. And sadly, all of life's little goals are not as easy to measure as miles on a pedometer and stress on a treadmill.
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