Goals

We are getting to the end of an eventful year. Every news paper and news channel is busy with covering 2008 - Terror attacks, Economic turmoil, Olympics & Cricket everywhere. People would be ranking whether the year was personally a blockbuster or mediocre or disaster. Few would be working on resolutions for 2009. That stuck me to think on its remote cousin know as "Goals". To be more specific, I was thinking whether one should have goals or not. If you feel "What a silly question - If you want, have it, otherwise leave it. What's there to think about it?", you are not far - closer to how I might conclude. ;)

First, coming to "why this question?" I believe answering this question could fundamentally change the way we live our lives. I think there are 2 different ways of living: (1) Take life as it comes (2) Have goals and constantly strive to achieve that. A bit of clarification here: Under #1, there are 2 sub-categories: (1a) Be open to opportunities that life may throw at you and give your 100% (1b) Be a lazy irresponsible bum. Obviously, (1b) is out of any discussion here. The fight is really between #1a and #2. In some sense, it's like the classic fight between Fate (call it Karma / God / Luck / Fortune / Universal plan) and Intelligence. Supporters of Fate say 'Everything has been planned out in detail for you - You just execute it honestly'. Advocates of Intelligence believe, ‘It is stupid to think that someone decides your destiny. You and you alone plan and execute everything.’

Let me take my personal example. Some of you, who know me, would be surprised on why I talk about Fate, since I 'come across' as an ambitious person. (Looks can be deceiving ;)) Let me tell you, my best of, what they call, 'achievements' happened not by absolute planning and meticulous execution - but more through opportunities and by enjoying what I was doing. On the other hand, there are many instances where I had set the goal "A", but ended up getting "B" - Too many examples in this category: Targeted IIT, but went to CEG; Yearned for top US Schools, but worked for Trilogy; Envisioned to be a great coder, but excelled in management and the IIM gates opened (literally got B over A here!) Thought I would die for this one girl, but was reborn anew. Similar story with job. But on hindsight, I think it is best that B has happened to me than A – E.g. Had I got what I initially targeted for, I wouldn't have experienced the great life of Trilogy and eventually an exciting career in India. Thanks the entire Bs! Some of the happiest days of my life had been when I took life as it is - giving 100% to whatever opportunity that pops up. So, as I see, there are 2 issues with setting goal:

• Figuring out what is the right set of goals for oneself – Most people say 1000 things on what their dad / kid should do, but can’t go beyond half a dozen when it’s intended for them – typical conversations like “I really don’t know what’s good for me”, “will I be able to do this”, “this is not for me”. Or that people become too greedy and end up setting too ambitious goals which don’t make much sense later
• Second, we forget about living the life when the focus shifts solely on the final objective - it's like a mirage - you constantly run behind something - there is never an end to it.

Let's now take a U-turn to explore the other side.

From childhood, we have been encouraged to have goals / ambitions and almost all motivational books suggest us having goals – Don’t think so many people can be collective idiots. Tam saint Thiruvalluvar says Ulluvathallam Uyarvullal (Means “Think Big” – oh, nice caption for Mr. Anil Ambani!). They say aim at star to shoot at the sky and fortune favors the brave. Going back to my personal examples: Who knows, I got "B" just because I tried for "A" and / or that I didn’t give my 100% for A. Also, it might be short-sighted to architect our lives just based on past. Life is like a stock market - one can't predict tomorrow based on yesterday - Everyday is new. Apart from my personal example, I think there are few reasons why it makes sense for everyone to have goals:

• Goals help one to stretch himself.. to bring out his best. So, if not for personal reasons, goals might be good for the progress of the society at large. Many people who made great discoveries and improvements had a great vision or an ambition.
• Goals are somehow related to one's personal, professional, financial or societal developments. So, it's difficult to skip them - You need to have goals, unless your goal is not to have goals.
• By nature, human beings are desirous (if not greedy), want their ego to be satisfied, want recognition (both self & others), need a sense of contribution / doing work, prefer being in control of their lives - Having goals could tie all these.
• For many people, though having goals may not be the best way to go about, there is no other better way - Life is not generous enough to always throw things at us - not having goals or aspirations could lead to boredom, desperation and frustration. For most people, life could be difficult and clueless without proper direction in the form of goals.

Ok, do all these mean we have no other choice but have goals? Of course, NOT. It all finally boils down to our values and how we want to live our lives. In fact, most people spend more than half of their lives trying to figure out what life really means. I think life is nothing more than what we say it IS. If one says life is all about "Peace", he can choose to not have goals and be content with whatever he has. If you define it as "Success", have tones of goals and go about accomplishing them all. If life is all about "Happiness" - It's a mixed bag - some people are happy about doing something, for others, it's doing nothing. The list can go on. Just would conclude with 2 points (a) We can do whatever we want, unless we regret later in our life for doing / not-doing something (b) One can keep an eye in the destiny, but still enjoy the treasures and pressures during the journey.

So, are you going to have goals? Irrespective of whether you are have it or not, have an awesome year ahead. :)