goals

Fullness

A couple of years ago, I was experimenting with a new journal style (for those of you who don’t know this about me, I’ve kept some form of journal or diary since 1973).  I bought a blank book, then wrote a list of words on the first page.  The challenge was to take one word at a time and write about it until I didn’t have anything else to say. 

Most words on the list took two or more pages to fully explore, though a couple took less.  For the word “fulfillment”, I wrote:

“My life has always been full.  Full of work, full of activity, full of obligations, full of  ‘shoulds’, full of food, full of fears, full of expectations, anticipation, potential.  It was so full I was completely overwhelmed much of the time.

It has only been recently that I’ve realized that a life can be very full without being filled.  My goal now is to figure out what I need to do or change to experience ‘filled’.  The paradox is that the first step is to pare down, purge, create space. There has to be less to make more.”

So, here I am, a couple of years older and, hopefully, worlds wiser.  My life is still full, especially in August.  But it is also much further along the way to being filled.  And by filled I actually mean something akin to sated or satisfied.  The activities on which I spend my energy are meaningful in ways that I hadn’t really experienced when I wrote the journal entry above.  And I was definitely onto something when I said the first step was to create space. 

In the quest to make space in my life, I have had to examine my time and figure out what stays and what goes.  I purged my closets, my craft room, my psychic baggage.  I now spend a lot less time filling time, and a lot more engaging in experiences that are satisfying at the soul-deep level.  I’ve learned that really good, and good for you, food sates your appetite in a way that junk never will — and this is true for the things I put my heart into, as well the things I put into my mouth.

A few weeks ago, an old friend said to me, “You have a very full life.”  I hadn’t thought of it, but I loved hearing  it.  My life is full in the sense I imagined it could be when I wrote that journal piece.  This kind of full, this style of fulfillment, leaves plenty of room for growth and adventure. For new people and places. And it creates its own atmosphere of contentment even in the harried and difficult seasons of the year.

On being a “goalie”

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.

After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,

We ourselves flash and yearn,

and moreover my mother told me as a boy

(repeatingly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored

means you have no

Inner Resources.’  I conclude now I have no

inner resources because I am heavy bored…

–“Dream Song 14”, John Berryman

Life, friends, used to feel a lot like this poem.  In fact, that was one of the reasons the poem resonated with me – I knew, in my heart even if I refused to admit it aloud, that my boredom and inactivity resulted from my own lack of inner resources.  There wasn’t a lot of “flashing and yearning” going on in my life.  There WAS a lot of ho-humming and “Victory Garden” watching. Yawn.

And then, slowly, things began to change.  We’re talking slow as in “at a glacial pace” (thanks, Meryl Streep).  One significant part of that change has been the discovery that I operate best, achieve more, when I set goals.  Now, to those of you who have been devotees of Stephen Covey or who knew your life’s ambitions at age 10, this is a no brainer.  For me, it was a revelation.  (Remember what I’ve said in the past about being a late bloomer?  Turns out, I am not that quick on the up-take, either!)

My college English Department faculty lampooned the seniors each year, and in performing her version of me, Sr. Pat Nolan slouched into the skit, hands in pockets, and said, “I don’t know.  Maybe I’ll be a writer…Maybe I’ll become an editor…whatever….something’s bound to turn up.”  Not a flattering portrait, albeit accurate.  For much of my life, I just seemed constitutionally incapable of committing to a course of action and then taking the steps necessary to see it through.

Now, I know I have accomplished a number of things over the years: graduate school while working full-time; a demanding and time-consuming job; making a difference in the lives of students. I am proud of these achievements.  But many of my proudest accomplishments, while the result of hard work, began as things I just sort of fell into (grad school is a perfect example, and I’ll tell that story another time if you want to know!)  The discovery that goals help me to focus my time and see things through has been a key factor in my current state of happiness.  A second eye-opener:  goals can be small!  Yes, its true — audacious goals are great, but so are the smaller lets-finally-clean-the-craft-room-type goals.  I no longer underestimate the satisfaction of meeting a goal within the time-frame allotted for it.

On Sunday morning, I was up bright and early and on my way to Palo, Iowa for the annual Pigman Triathlon.  Competing in a triathlon has never been a goal of mine, however, it was for three important people in my life and all three were competing on Sunday.  The day dawned bright, beautiful, and without the normal summer humidity.  And while cheering on my friends, I also had the opportunity to see 800 others fulfilling their triathlon goals — 800 people of every age, shape, size, and fitness level.  It was inspiring and motivational.  I did not leave with the goal to compete in a triathlon.  But I did leave with the sense that it is time to set a goal to stretch myself.  So this week, I’m enjoying my newly clean craft room, gathering my inner resources for an exciting life ahead: its definitely time for a little flash and yearn!

To Do

I took a spontaneous day off work today (Thursday).  I heard a weather report yesterday that made me long to be outdoors rather than at my desk and computer, and I seized the opportunity.

The list of things I intended to do today, on my day “off”,  included:

  • weigh in and post on this blog
  • weed
  • plant hollyhocks by the garage
  • spread mulch
  • put up a rose trellis so the climbing rose has something to climb
  • laundry
  • begin sorting out my craft room
  • finish a bead project that currently resides on my dining room table (because I can’t wade through the craft room, see previous item).

What I actually accomplished is this:

  • sat outside in the sun, with iced coffee and a writer’s magazine
  • talked on the phone with my friend Sue, who is in the hospital enduring the grueling first days after knee replacement surgery
  • ate lunch from a roadside grill at Nelson’s Meats with my friend Molly
  • bought some great pens
  • sat outside in the shade, at Coffeesmith’s, sipping iced tea and pretending to write but actually daydreaming and rereading journal entries from last October
  • took iced coffees to my friend Sara’s house and held Ellie, the sweetest little baby Sara cares for
  • worked out for 20 minutes
  • daydreamed in a dark room while wrapped up like a human-sized burrito (a far-infrared body wrap, truly lovely)

Forget the arguments about baseball or football being the great American pastime. The truth is, Productivity seems to be both our work and leisure-time activity of choice. Our To-Do Lists runneth over.  Occasionally, though, we have to stop do-do-do-ing and try just being.

Today was a day for being.  For seeing the beauty of the trees, for smelling the freshness of spring in the air, for turning a face to the warm sun and feeling gratitude for the here and now.  I know that my to-do list will be there tomorrow, waiting for tick-marks of completion.  But today was an ephemeral treasure, good for only one brief, perfect moment.  Was I productive today? Perhaps. Did I accomplish everything I needed to? Check.