goals

I'm usually wrong about the future. There's always a sense in which we know what's coming, to some extent, but the reality of it is a surprise, so we don't really know what's coming. We know some of the parameters, but we can't fully know what it's going to be like until we experience it, and when we experience it, it's no longer the future; something else is in the future. 

Sometimes, if we are too intently focused on some future goal, it squeezes the life out of the present. It's worth remembering that we don't really know what's going to happen, and we aren't in control of it. At the same time, we have more influence than we sometimes realise over how things will play out. We exercise that influence through the way we live today. 

For most of my life I've been captivated by the idea of having goals. There have been times when I didn't have goals - I was just living my life - but then I decided that it would be a good idea to have some goals. So, I sat down to make a list of goals, and I couldn't think of anything. I didn't know how to think about it. How do you come up with goals? What did I want? I don't know. If I wanted something, wouldn't I be pursuing it? 

Then I thought of a different way to approach it - to ask myself, what would I like to happen? Leaving aside all practicality and questions about what was possible and how...what would be really good? Then, a few things came to mind, and once I got started, I just kept adding to the list, and I kept adding to it in the days, weeks and months after that.