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One Life Goal: Achieved

The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want now.
- Hilary Hinton "Zig" Ziglar, American author, motivational speaker (b. 1926)

While I am not fond of absolute pronouncements (they leave no room for
exceptions), Mr. Ziglar's statement contains a great deal of truth.

Why do we trade long term goals for short term pleasures or desires?

This happens more today than ever before in history, likely because
people have more opportunities to gratify themselves now rather than
struggle to achieve long term goals that may or may not pan out later.

People accept jobs that have them working 75 to 90 hours per week, carry
around laptops and cell phones, even grouse when they must turn their
phones off while in a theatre, all to accumulate a high income they
don't have time to spend effectively. They may lose their families and
spend their income on stuff they would not need if they didn't work all
the time. Their pleasure comes from buying, not from doing.

People take drugs for a few minutes of bliss, then forget from one time
to the next the horrifying experience of regaining their undrugged
senses after the fact. Their marriages, their families and their
friendships eventually disintegrate, but they need that hit of pleasure
for a few minutes no matter what the cost later.

People marry the wrong partners because they believe it will help them
in years to come. They get the looks and recognition for a short time,
but live years of misery later when it doesn't work out.

People buy products they see advertised--such as cosmetics, cosmetic
surgery, fashion design clothing or upscale cars--despite the fact that
these rarely achieve their intended purpose (real enjoyment) and often
leave the buyer cash-poor, unable to engage in other worthwhile
activities because they don't have enough money left. They don't "get
it" that a $100,000 a year income is the same as a $20,000 a year income
if both spend it all and have nothing left to show for it.

Why? The answer, I believe, is that we no longer encourage children to
have long term goals for their lives as adults. Rather than urging them
to determine what they want to make of their lives, what they want to
accomplish with their time on this planet, our culture teaches them to
buy for pleasure and recognition and work as hard as you must to get the
necessary income (as high as possible) to do it.

In my personal life, I didn't have much in the way of goals as a young
man. With my intellectual and physical impairments, social backwardness
and emotional late development, I thought I would be lucky just to
survive long enough to retire from something.

However, I did have one long term goal. One summer day when I was about
16 years old and working for the summer in a factory, a overheard one
worker tell another "I never have conversations with people younger than
25 because they don't know anything." A quick self-examination persuaded
me that I fit that, I didn't know anything, not much about any subject,
no skills at any trade, no aspirations to get them, no hope.

I decided on the spot that one day I would like to know enough that I
could speak with knowledge and confidence on some subject. As I had no
idea which subject to choose, I decided that I had better gain a bit of
knowledge on as many subjects as possible before I selected one to
specialize in.

In the process of devouring information on a wide variety of topics over
many years, I managed to neglect deciding which subject would be my
specialty. Coincidentally, I became a teacher because teaching held more
security for a man with a young family than the media work I had been
in. That was an accomplishment in itself, since I was functionally
illiterate at the time.

As getting an undergraduate degree, then a master's degree from a
university brought in more money for a teacher in my region, I secured
those as well. Still functionally illiterate. I became skilled at
thinking through a subject for a paper, then searching out quotes in
books I had not read to support my theses. (It was easy as I only had to
read the quotes the authors of the books had quoted, not the whole of
the books. Then I requoted the quotes and gave attribution to both
authors.)

In my mid 40s, I learned to read for content and enjoyment. That
improved my ability to accumulate more information and knowledge.

Eventually I became someone people turned to for information and
answers. As my university experience specialized in sociology, people
come to me for advice on subjects relating to the social sciences. I had
reached my goal.

It had taken nearly 50 years from that first motivational prompt, but I
had accomplished what few others had, achieved my life goal.

Looking around at people I know, I realize that few of them have life
goals. Real goals they work towards. Most of them have more expensive
cars than mine, have bigger homes than mine and pay taxes on higher
incomes than mine.

But they aren't as happy. They don't understand why. So they go smoke
some grass or get drunk and forget about it.

Remember, our job as adults is to teach the generations following us to
make the world better, not to screw it up more than we did. Long term
goals, life goals, are important.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social
Problems, a guidebook for parents, teachers and anyone who wants to
teach children what they need to know (outside of schoolwork) to make
successes of their lives.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

 

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Turning It Around Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems