I've been thinking a lot about rules, laws, social morality...the underlying structure of the foundation our society is built on. It seems like no matter where you grew up, no matter what your cultural or racial background consists of, the basis tenants of humanity are the same. While I have no proof to base my assumptions on, I suspect even the remotest tribal communities in the Amazon rainforest have the same basic social ideas. In a similar fashion, almost all religions on the planet today believe in a higher power and life after death is one form or another even though the doctrines of each religion may be vastly different.
It seems to me that almost everything we do, every life experience, is based on one of two simple rules. Passed down through many generations, we will continue to teach our children to build their lives on the same founding ideas. From the beginning of time and most likely until the end, we are taught to look forward and to look back. And if we do it right, looking in these directions will build our present life to perfection....or so they say....whomever "they" is.
From nearly our infancy, we are taught to look back in an effort to learn from our past. We are told to examine history, our personal history and that of our family. Even the past deeds of our country is called into question for fear of repeating its mistakes. This guideline becomes one of the cornerstones we will eventually build our lives on. We've all seen those weird studies that tell us how many hours in our lifetime we will spend asleep or standing in line. I wonder how many hours we will spend reflecting back? We'll do it during history classes and poli-sci, class reunions, anniversaries, funerals and graduations. But we'll also do it after we've finally recovered from a broken heart or when we've had to downsize or relocate because of the economy or at the birth of our first grandchild. It seems the desire to reflect back can come from many sources, near death or life changing.
The other lesson we learn at an early age is to set goals for our future and to actively move toward them. It doesn't matter what area of your life we're talking about, you should have a goal in place. Personal, professional, spiritual, financial, retirement, family or home, you keep pushing forward to reach the goal in each area. You might re-evaluate midstream, but keep moving forward. And once you obtain your goals, apparently you're suppose to set new ones.
Both of these rules become ingrained over time and eventually subconsciously part of our psyche. So it makes sense that if we learn from our previous mistakes and the mistakes of others, and we set strong goals for the future, then our lives should be perfect....exactly what we seek at every moment in time. Yet it usually isn't. Most people can give at least one thing they'd like to change about their lives. They want to lose weight, quit their job, get divorced or get married, have a family, grow a backbone, make more money, get a college degree, own their own business, learn a new language or travel the world. I could go on forever because we've all got aspirations in our life that seems to fall flat, no matter how much we try to set a goal and stick to it. But why? If we know how to learn from our past and we're good at setting goals for the future, what's the problem?
If someone desperately wants to be a doctor, he knows he has to make the grades to get into medical school. No grades, no medical school, no M.D. behind his name. It's black and white. Yet the same guy can't seem to lose weight and keep it off, no matter how much he says he wants to. Someone may have built an impressive resume professionally yet can't seem to build a strong personal relationship with a life partner no matter how much they claim to want it.
Why is it we know the exact steps to take to get us from point A to point B in most areas of our lives yet falter in other areas? And for some reason we can usually give great advice to our friends in the exact same areas we are failing in. What gives?
What I'm about to say isn't going to be popular. Honestly I'm not crazy about it either, but I think it's the truth. We really are what we seek, whether we choose to admit it or not. We struggle to lost weight because we aren't prepared to do the work or we're afraid of the attention that life changing event will bring. We can't find Mr. Right because we aren't willing to put ourselves out there or we put so many stipulations on his looks, career, background, finances and yes, even his goals, that there isn't a man alive who qualifies for the position...yet we act as though we desperately want a relationship.
I know this isn't a popular statement but let's face it, we really do know how to learn from our mistakes when we want to and we achieve every goal we set. We know how to dig deep and work hard for what we really want. And we're experts at making excuses or playing dumb about the goals we have no intention of reaching. One of our favorite excuses seems to be "I can't find the time to (fill in the blank here with words like "exercise" or "date")." Yet, if our child suddenly needs speech or physical therapy, we'll figure out a way to find an extra hour a day. If our boss offers us a promotion, suddenly working an extra 5-10 hours a week seems perfectly fine when going to the gym for an hour each morning was completely out of the question.
So what does this mean? If you've always said you want to grow a backbone yet opportunity after opportunity presents itself, most of which you've chosen to ignore, should you simply stop trying? No, I don't think so. I think you need to dig a little deeper to find out WHY it's a goal and WHY you keep failing to reach it. Sort of like that criminal defense we hear about on the news so much lately....how the defendant was abused as a child and that's why he did whatever horrible crime he's accused of. Maybe there really is something from our childhood that influences us as adults. There must be a reason why we do the work to obtain some goals yet others fall by the wayside.
Maybe even more important than reaching the goal is the need to examine why we're struggling with it. Maybe we can use our failures as an opportunity to grow....sort of a chance to learn from our past to achieve our goals for the future....just like we were taught.
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