Every new year begins with hope. In a sense it is, like every birthday celebration, a “new birth” and gives us a sense of wiping the slate clean and beginning anew.
The idea of writing goals down has proven to be an important element in bringing them to fruition. And, though I can’t recall where I first heard this, dividing one’s future into segments of immediate (one year) goals, mid (three year) goals, and long term (ten year) goals seems to work even better.
I suppose externalizing our hopes, dreams, goals, and desires makes them more palpable and gives them a grater sense of reality. It also organizes, categorizes, and provides a sense of what needs to be done incrementally to reach our long term goals and keeps them alive in our imaginations.
Many, like Plato, believe that thoughts really are things. I’m one of these. Let me share an example of how this has worked in my life:
Since early childhood I have been strongly attracted to Egypt; especially ancient Egyptian culture and history. I “decided,” when quite young, that I would visit the Pyramids, Temples, Necropolises, and other ancient sites one day; and, that I would do so with others who held the same passion for and inner “familiarity” with this time and place in history as I.
Each year I wrote this goal on one of my lists: immediate, mid, or long-term. The older I got the closer to “immediate” it became. Though I didn’t contact travel agencies or begin to earmark money for this trip (which I have done with other travel goals) I did include more specifics in my description of what this trip would look like each year. Finally, when in my early thirties, my description had firmed-up and became exactly as I wanted and “knew” it would be.
About a year later, when a graduate student at Boston College, I was approached by a stranger while waiting, with around 20 others, for an elevator. He was a grad student in Psychology and was conducting a Peruvian Whistling Vessel (which I’d never heard of) experiment. One of the usual participants was absent and they needed a twelfth person to complete their circle. Would I be interested? Having nothing better to do and because this sounded interesting to me I said, “Sure.”
His group met in the office of a Psychology professor and they were sitting in a circle on the carpeted floor when I entered. Soon after the experiment had ended, in walked their professor, tablet in hand, ready to “debrief” his students. Noticing a new face he introduced himself to me. When I stated my name, he appeared startled and said: “Talk about synchronicity! I just wrote your name and telephone number down after meeting with Professor McAleer! (My advisor and the English professor for whom I was working as a Research Assistant)” It seemed he had just asked Dr. McAleer if he knew a grad student who was a good writer and had an interest in Transcendentalism and/or ancient Egypt. He was looking for someone to accompany himself and a group of Egyptologists, Palaeontologists, psychic archaeologists, film makers, musicians, parapsychologists, historians, and others on a trip to Egypt. This “scribe” would be given an all-expenses paid trip in exchange for keeping a journal of the groups daily activities, experiments, discoveries, and travels.
This adventure turned out to be everything I had hoped for, envisioned, and much, much more. And, to make it even more personal and special, our flight from Boston departed on March 17–my birthday!
While I can’t say I’ve realized any other goal in such a dramatic and extraordinary way, I can say that I’ve enjoyed reaching many other long and short term goals through the years. Why not give this different, more specific and organized type of resolution-making a try this year? No one need know your goals and imaginings but yourself; and, you certainly have nothing to lose!
Happy New Year!
