On aiming right

Lets start with a contrived tale.

A kid wanted to learn aiming his slingshot. A friend of his was an expert so the kid asked the guy to teach him. The two of them went to the backyard and the expert said “You see that small temple, right? We worship there, don’t hit it.” So the kid promptly took aim at the fellow’s dog, which yelped in pain and scurried off. The expert was livid with anger “Now what made you do that!” he fumed. The kid said “Why didn’t you tell me not to hit the dog also? Better, why don’t you just tell me what to hit, instead?”

If you think of our minds as the kid, our bodies and brains as the slingshot, our efforts as the stones aimed by the slingshot, you may realize we sometimes behave like the “expert” who knows what not to aim for, rather than the other way round.

The thought dawned upon me over the past couple months as I spent a lot of time in soul-searching and goal finding. I needed to figure out what I wanted to be and how I wanted to live my life. Over time I had jotted down quite a few thoughts such as “I don’t want to remain a software programmer all my life”, “I don’t want to stay in USA forever”, “I don’t want to have to worry about money in the future”, “I don't want to be lonely”, and “I don’t want to marry just for the sake of getting married”.

Along the way, I noticed that most of my thoughts were stated in a negative way. Rather than go towards a definite target, I was trying to go away from something: be it my current job profile, future financial insecurity, loneliness or making mistakes in marriage. The thing to note is, though I wanted to away from unwanted things, there was nothing I wanted to go towards. With nothing to aim for, I ended up stagnating in the same place where I was, away from unpleasant things, but not anywhere close to the things that would make my life better.

And so I started feeling frustrated. Life became a drag, like a stream on which I was simply a log taking a ride, knowing only how to avoid getting stuck in the bushes and creepers, but not knowing where I was going, and worse, not knowing where I wanted to go.

So I tried eliminating negative goals. For example, rather than say “I don’t want to be a software programmer”, I tried “In the next 3 years I want to analyze and design applications, interact with customers and manage development teams; following which I want to move into upper management”. Rather than say “I don’t want to marry just for the sake of getting married” I tried “I want to only marry someone I love, understand and care about”. Instead of “I don’t want to stay in USA forever”, and “I don’t want to have to worry about money in the future”, I substituted “I will return to India after I save 20-30 grand more, over the next 2 years”. And I committed myself to re-evaluating all these goals every 2-3 months. Because life changes, and you have to adapt accordingly.

It was very hard at first, I must admit, because I was approaching specifics. Just like an obese body refuses to be driven to activity, my mind was used to the comfort of being non-specific, and wanted things to stay that way. But once the inertia was eliminated, the difference was astonishing. Just by restating goals in a positive way, I had narrowed my aims to a set of targets I wanted to achieve. Realizing those targets was now only a matter of making the right choices and putting in the right amount of effort. Even better, in the process, I began to understand my abilities, my feelings, my desires; I realized I wanted to pursue some hobbies and enrich my mind - I began to understand myself. And the joy of those discoveries can only be experienced, not described.