If we allow things to pile up in our lives we can start to feel the effects on our psyches. It takes regular cleaning and regular work for us to not notice the back log of duties we each have at the end of the day. I think we can all understand the struggle between setting up and achieving our goals. We can look at each of our duties/goals for any given day as one huge project, which will naturally overwhelm us or we can look at it as just a series of individual steps that can easily be handled and completed to make our lives better. We must all attack our goals to the best of our abilities. That is the true nature of our work and our lives, walking through the various steps to reach our goals in a timely fashion.
Instructions as old as time
Where did the idea of goals and setting them up even come from? Goals are something that we are told we should all have as we grow up. Goals are something that we set for ourselves, whether we know it or not. Goals are also things that other people set up for us, whether we know it or not. We are told that we are supposed to live up to these goals and accomplish them. But where does this inherent idea of goals and achievable benchmarks of success come from? Who was the first person to set up a goal?
Were our first goals as simple as finding food and shelter? Did we develop more advanced goals as our societies and civilizations advanced? How did the first person to rule over other people get to that point? Was that one of his goals? Did he see how good he was at hunting and getting woman so he decided his next step would be to control the fates of his fellow hunters?
Everyone struggles with how to get there!
If we look at the goals of people today have they really changed that much over time? I would suspect no since I believe that the content of our goals hasn’t changed but the context and the way we achieve those goals has. Just like those first ambitious goal setters goals we all want to stave off hunger, have a roof over our heads and reproduce with the most attractive people. Biologically and psychologically this will give us the best chances of success through all the various and accepted measure of what success means, like having offspring that best continue our genetic line, being able to feed and support those offspring and our mates, plus be seen with nothing but the best around us at all times. All human actions and emotions can be attributed to our animal/instinctual roots.
Our animal instinct drives us to seek and accomplish our goals because most of our goals are setup by ourselves and those that truly know us and care about us for our betterment, thus our success in life and eventual procreation. The same animal instinct that led and still does lead us to try and tackle the biggest animals for food, sport, and trophy leads us to try and make the right moves to become successful within the confines of our culture and society.
For instance, it would be nothing more than a feather in my proverbial cap to go out and kill the biggest deer I or anyone else could find. I would be allowed certain bragging rights within my male peer group but to say it was a necessity for survival would be disingenuous at best. Yet, for me to go out and get a high paying job with a lot of benefits for myself and my future spouse and offspring would, in light of our societal context, make a hell of a lot of sense. It certainly makes more sense than me trekking out to the woods every morning looking and praying for a giant deer to wonder across my path.
Thus our goals in life are tailor made for our positions in life through community, culture, and society itself. An interesting morsel of food for thought my brain stumbled across today.
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