Timeline

Sometimes it is important that each of us look to the future and decide where we want to be. Its is also important to look back and see where we came from. Ten years ago I would have been hard pressed to guess and or predict that where I am now would be where I wanted to be. Furthermore when I look to the future and say here is where I want to be in ten years that may not be a realistic summation of where I will be. 

There is a saying "Shoot for the moon, and if you miss you will end up in the stars". While this lofty goal is both admirable and insightful it by no means makes it valid to the here and now. Can I say I am among the stars now because I missed the moon of my prediction ten years ago? What if my goal now is and always will be the same as that I had in the past...? Am I supposed to do a "U" turn and go for it. 

As far as I can tell humans have not developed a method for traveling through time. Well it is possible that someone may have discovered how to move forward in time at a rate faster than the rest of us and my one of these days appear to us miraculously at the same age as when he or she left the past but what good is that going to do them. OK so the didn't have hi-def TV and microwave ovens back then but really is the world that much of a better place? Hopefully they bought some stocks that didn't crash in the last couple weeks and they are rich or else they are sure to not be able to buy gas for their time machine. But I digress.

So what's up with setting a goal for what one wants to be. We ask little kids what they want to be when they grow up. What a horrible thought. Well kid, what profession would you like to be in so that you can work too many hours a day to pay for things you want to have but cant afford in the first place. 

There is the idea that we should get a job that we like doing and not one that we have to do. True, but, some ones got to wash the dishes and clean the cobwebs... and after all this you could be hit by a bus in the morning as you cross the street and its all over. The latin saying "carpe diem"  says that we ought to seize the day. Live for today, or as a recruiter for the army might tell you "Be all you can be". But what does that mean. Am I being less than I could right now. Maybe I could be learning to juggle with my feet while my fingers tackle the keys on the computer. Am I more than I was? 

Goals and timelines only point out what could happen. Who you are right now is all you can be right now. Maybe in the next minuet you will grow a second head and be more than you were the minuet before but till then you are always all you can be. Then you can once again be that child and say I want to be a grownup when I grow-up, but for now I am a child who on the whole has less of the worries of the world on my shoulders. Timelines and goals... someday I am going to look back and say, ten years ago I was wondering what the deal was with timelines, now I understand. Well maybe I will by then or I might still be wondering that, in any case I hope I outlive the timeline.