At first, I was unsure about the need to blog, and I am amazing at excuses. Clearly, homework is more important than blogging, along with reading, sleeping, and really anything else that doesn't end with me sharing my personal thoughts with other people. However, I am stuck in the Gainesville airport for at least three more hours, so I have no excuse. I always start a blog, yet I never finish or keep going. Maybe it is because I don't think I am witty enough to be sharing my thoughts on the internet, but I am pretty aware that God was extremely generous when giving me the gift of humor. It has more to do with my complete fear of committing to anything that does not have a 100% chance of coming up Tara, even something as simple as writing in a public space. In truth, the same can be said about goals that I set for myself. I always start them, and I even start them well. Yet once I realize they are attainable, the flame goes out and I move on. I don't even get upset about not finishing them-- I find a new dream as quickly as I found the last. Up until the last few months, I have been completely okay living like this. I have been able to explore parts of life that few ever touch, learn more about myself than I thought possible, and read at least the first twenty pages of hundreds of books most people will not open in a lifetime.
However, if you only read the first twenty pages of Peter Pan (and live under a rock completely unpenetrated by Disney), it is a story about a perfectly rich, bratty family--with a dog-human as a nanny--that is held together by a submissive, and borderline robotic, mother. If that is what you get out of Peter Pan, you have clearly missed the point. It's probably because you stopped reading 200 pages too soon. You missed the magic that happens when that perfectly rich, bratty family is turned upside down by a boy in tights that refuses to grow up (I am a firm believer that Barrie imagined him in tights long before Walt did).
If you don't finish the book, you miss the faith, trust, and pixie dust. Goals work the same way. Without seeing them through to the end, you miss the heart of why you had that goal in the first place. Finding the heart of the goal is what creates individual growth. You don't have to succeed; sometimes it is better if you fail. Instead, put faith, trust, and even some pixie dust into each and every goal, regardless of the foreseen outcome.
With all of this in mind, my new goal is to view each goal with the same three ingredients that Peter Pan references when he breaks down flying for the Darling children. After all, who doesn't want to fly? I am not sure if there are rules about having a goal about goals (seems a bit redundant), but there it is, starting with this blog post.
So until the next time I gaze into the magic mirror (yes, the same one that says I am the loveliest of them all on days that I have not been on a plane since 4 AM), that's all I've got.
With faith, trust, and a little bit of pixie dust,
Tara
