goalposts

I was thinking the other day about the last time I made a goal and fulfilled it. I'm not a very goal oriented person, usually. And when I do make goals they're usually halfhearted and I don't end up doing much about them. In year 12 I set myself the goal of getting a good enough score to get into law. I didn't particularly want to do law, I just thought it would be a good way to motivate myself. Anyway, I didn't get the score, but I wrote a letter to the law faculty telling them how lucky they'd be to have me and got accepted from that. And then I decided I didn't want to do law at all. So really, the whole setting a goal thing was pretty much a waste of time.

But for some reason, I remembered yesterday the last time I fulfilled a goal. I was about 9 or 10 years old, and I played the recorder in an ensemble, and I set myself the goal of getting into the highest level recorder ensemble at my music school by the time I was 12. And I did it. Not that it really required much effort on my part (in fact I'd forgotten about the goal altogether and only rememberd it later), but since it's the last goal I can remember fulfilling I'll just let that bit slide.

I don't have any goals at the moment. Well, if I do they're very short term ones. For example, my goal tonight is to write another section in the essay I'm working on. And even then, I may just end up watching a few more episodes of Buffy. Whenever she has goals, they're usually along the lines of 'stop the world from ending'. That'd probably be a better motivation than 'hand in essay on time or lose 10% per day'.

Ah Buffy, so much anguish.