Setting goals

Enjoying the moment

A recent MBA graduate went home and, the next day, flipped open her lap top, found the 12-minute Valedictorian speech and called her primary-school sons to her side. “I want you boys to listen to this,” she said. It was a simple and inspired message about giving back, about going out and doing something to make the world a better place.

The boys listened attentively. Then, pointing to the capped-and-gowned young businessman who had delivered those words, she added, “This is you someday.”

Why set such a high goal before kids who are still mastering hitting and catching in a Park District baseball program? Perhaps we should ask, Why not?

Victorian poet Robert Browning wrote,

“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,

or what’s a heaven for?”

If it is true that the purpose for life is to help our fellow man – and teachings which survive the centuries all point in this direction – then there are means to do it.

The need for improving education, jobs, relationships, housing, distributing food and basic necessities, and yes, for preserving the planet says that the opportunities are limitless. The prospects for discovering and implementing ways to advance mankind, for finding the solutions, are also without limit.

So set high goals. If some of us achieve only 10% of these, others will reach 40%, or 60% or even 90%.

And if these objectives are unselfish, attaining even some portion is going to leave the world a better place.

Browning’s American contemporary, religious writer Mary Baker Eddy, had some practical observations about goals, gleaned from a long life of struggle and accomplishment.

“The devotion of thought

to an honest achievement

makes the achievement possible.”

I make strong demands on love,

call for active witnesses to prove it,

and noble sacrifices and grand achievements as its results.”

“What has not unselfed love

achieved for the race?”