I’ve never been one for concrete goal setting. To be honest, I think when we set specific goals, they often fall through the cracks…at least for me they do. I instead set intentions…things I intend to do, but am in no way obligated to do. Because plans can change and they do change. And sometimes, they change when you don’t want or weren’t expecting them to change.
I recently had to reassess some of my life intentions. This year has definitely thrown a wrench into things and well, none of my intentions were viable anymore–at least for the foreseeable future. Me without a heading is basically a stalled ship. I absolutely hate the feeling of being stagnant. There is nothing exciting or worth waking up for when there’s no potential for growth. And that is exactly how I felt two months ago.
You know that horrid goals question they tend to ask at every interview: “Where do you see yourself in five year?” I’ve always hated that question because I never plan for five years, let alone next year. I can never really see myself in the future because I know things change–I change–and as a result, plans change. There’s not much I strive for in five years time, so I don’t even bother thinking about it. So naturally, I never have an answer for this question. But I decided to think on it and realized there are two very specific things that I do strive for everyday that would still apply in five years time:
Life and happiness.
In the third grade, I had a teacher who had asked the class what they wanted to be when they grew up. We all went around the classroom telling the class what we had hope to become. When everyone had shared, our teacher asked us to look at a poster of a little girl that was at the front of the classroom and asked us, “do you know what she was wants to be when she grows up?” When no one knew the right answer, our teacher said “Alive. She wants to be alive when she grows up.”
And that moment, little eight-year-old me had obtained a new perspective on my life. I was–probably for the first time–aware of my privilege. How lucky am I to want to strive to be a singer, ice skater, artist–whatever it was that I wanted to be when I grew up–because I didn’t have to worry about not being alive then.
The one really big thing we take for granted in life is life.
Adult me now though wants life. A happy life. Or a relatively happy life. In five years time I hope I’m still alive and relatively happy.
How best I can describe exactly what I want is this: you know that feeling you get when you wake up in the morning and are incredibly excited for something? You may get butterflies in your stomach: the good kind of nerves. Typically, you might be a mixed bag of emotions: happy, scared, excited, anxious. But most importantly, you feel light as feather like you’re floating on air.
I want to feel that excited and happy all the time.
To live that way forever is definitely the ultimate goal.