Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Short-term Goals

I have so many times felt the need to have short term goals in life; they are the mile markers that keep us going; preventing us from getting lost in one or many of the serpentine labyrinths of life. Those goals need not necessarily be work or academics related; but could be anything which make us feel good, cater to our happiness or just make us feel a sense of accomplishment. It could be traveling, painting a picture or cooking a new innovative recipe.

Our lives today are busy beyond what we can imagine. And often such a life takes away the very essential sap that makes life worthy of enjoying. Short term goals come handy. They show a clear path towards an accomplishment. And an accomplishment often keeps us engaged enough not to revert our thoughts into things which are not so important or do not deserve enough time and attention.

People have called me workaholic time and again. And then I know how prone to emotions I am whenever it relates to something close to me. A balance is the key. When you have a short term goal, you rivet your emotions towards making it a success. And then being workaholic helps greatly!

I think short term goals also make us seek new changes in life; help us realize that there are new dawns in life; bring to us that for certain things "enough is enough" after a certain amount of time and that life needs to move on with another short term goal. These goals are the saviors to people like me who have an insatiable penchant of new changes and sense of accomplishment in life.

After all short term goals also tell us that everything is transitory in the sands of time. Moving on to newer beginnings and goals is the law of life, most of the times for the better of us.

I look forward to having two short term goals every month from now onwards. The first is, accomplishing a significant research endeavor or a part of it. For example, it could be a conference paper deadline, or could be finding a new observation in the data. The second one is something which would rejuvenate me for the next short term goal. It could be, I drive somewhere, take a nice picture or write a nice poem: things which would re-iterate to me that life needs to move on, but with all the satisfaction of living; leaving behind traces, and learning from them, instead of pondering, repenting or moping around with them.

After all, after a certain point of time, for most things "enough is enough", unless you consider that the thing deserves you, your time and your effort and attention.

At the end I am not sure if the blog made sense at all. All I had to say is that we all need short term goals to live. And to move over things of the past. And look for better things in life which make us better.


No comments: