Advice, Goals and Objectives
My boss’s assistant handed me an “advice card” today. Advice cards are cards that one fills out for the guest of honor at a baby shower. I looked at it, looked at her and she said “All you guys do the same thing. Just put “Best Wishes” on it and give it back to me!”
“I’m not even going to be here for the shower, I don’t have kids, what the hell am I supposed to write?”
“Just fill it out. Best wishes is fine.”
You do not mess with this woman. I have often said that she’s the one who actually runs this company, not the executives themselves. I have a tremendous amount of affection for her as well; we’re both long-time survivors of this nuthouse so I’ll do as she says.
But what the hell do I write? I don’t have kids. I don’t have any particular wisdom to impart on that front. This is another one of those life situations where I’m almost 100% sure that someone handed out instruction manuals for and I was absent that day.
Maybe I need a goal. Maybe that would set me right. Make me a proper, forward-marching member of the Western World.
Goals. There’s another woman who works here who’s training to run a marathon. I know about it because by coincidence or public transit schedules or whatever I often ride up the elevator with her and another guy and all they talk about is her training. It’s a consuming, defining thing. I imagine it gives every single day of her life meaning and a focus. It defines her, gives her something to talk to people about, it works in so many ways. The other night while walking to the kitchen to clean my coffee cup I saw her leaving in running attire and when someone commented on it and she said “Well, I normally change in the gym but tonight is running class.”
Running class? We have classes that teach us how to go left-right, left-right, left-right really fast now? Have we become so detached from our animal nature that we need instructors to reinforce the flight instinct? I need to come up with a scam like that to separate fools from their money.
Running’s not for me. Too fat, too old, too arthritic. Besides whenever I see one of these loons in their spandex and sweats I think of the Douglas Adams bit in the Hitchhiker’s Guide series about joggers being one of the groups on the spaceships filled with useless people fired into space by a society eager to improve itself.
Eh, athletic achievement is not my forte anyway. It’s just not in the genetic hand I was dealt.
I think maybe I do need goal or objective though. Collecting all 50 state quarters perhaps? Nah, too obtainable. Once the goal is reached you can’t do anymore unless you want to say, get two of each? Phooey.
I wonder if having a goal or an obsession to attain something quantifiable is a substitute for real passion for life or for a desire for varied experience. Try as I might, I can’t get into assigning myself some mainstream-friendly task like running a marathon and then getting my time lower and lower or getting a post-graduate degree that would be utterly useless in my chosen field (though many get them anyway – and a few have worked FOR me) or climbing every high peak in the Adirondacks like the late, great Kaos did. Maybe I could shoot for something like collecting a complete set of unopened boxes of Monster cereals from the 1970s (you know, Franken Berry, Boo Berry, Count Chocula, Fruit Brute, etc.) but that wouldn’t be useful from the conversational standpoint because people would think that was, well, weird. It’s like when I used to actually talk about curling and get all the curious looks and smart-ass responses. Forget it.
Perhaps having a goal is a way of keeping a person’s mind off of real life in the here and now. There are so many strivers because if people actually stopped and immersed themselves in their situation in the here and now they’d go mad or lose all hope. As long as you keep marching forward with your eyes on a distant horizon you can’t see what you’re stepping in today. That’s a key to a successful life in 21st century America. It’s the energy that keeps the perpetual student going. As long as you’re still taking courses toward that degree, as long as you’re still working toward that better marathon time, as long as you keep having kids and advancing their lives forward you have yet to fail completely. Lack of failure = success. That is the true American Dream.
Keep jogging toward that horizon everyone. Don't look down and don't look back. We'll all get there sooner or later.
“I’m not even going to be here for the shower, I don’t have kids, what the hell am I supposed to write?”
“Just fill it out. Best wishes is fine.”
You do not mess with this woman. I have often said that she’s the one who actually runs this company, not the executives themselves. I have a tremendous amount of affection for her as well; we’re both long-time survivors of this nuthouse so I’ll do as she says.
But what the hell do I write? I don’t have kids. I don’t have any particular wisdom to impart on that front. This is another one of those life situations where I’m almost 100% sure that someone handed out instruction manuals for and I was absent that day.
Maybe I need a goal. Maybe that would set me right. Make me a proper, forward-marching member of the Western World.
Goals. There’s another woman who works here who’s training to run a marathon. I know about it because by coincidence or public transit schedules or whatever I often ride up the elevator with her and another guy and all they talk about is her training. It’s a consuming, defining thing. I imagine it gives every single day of her life meaning and a focus. It defines her, gives her something to talk to people about, it works in so many ways. The other night while walking to the kitchen to clean my coffee cup I saw her leaving in running attire and when someone commented on it and she said “Well, I normally change in the gym but tonight is running class.”
Running class? We have classes that teach us how to go left-right, left-right, left-right really fast now? Have we become so detached from our animal nature that we need instructors to reinforce the flight instinct? I need to come up with a scam like that to separate fools from their money.
Running’s not for me. Too fat, too old, too arthritic. Besides whenever I see one of these loons in their spandex and sweats I think of the Douglas Adams bit in the Hitchhiker’s Guide series about joggers being one of the groups on the spaceships filled with useless people fired into space by a society eager to improve itself.
Eh, athletic achievement is not my forte anyway. It’s just not in the genetic hand I was dealt.
I think maybe I do need goal or objective though. Collecting all 50 state quarters perhaps? Nah, too obtainable. Once the goal is reached you can’t do anymore unless you want to say, get two of each? Phooey.
I wonder if having a goal or an obsession to attain something quantifiable is a substitute for real passion for life or for a desire for varied experience. Try as I might, I can’t get into assigning myself some mainstream-friendly task like running a marathon and then getting my time lower and lower or getting a post-graduate degree that would be utterly useless in my chosen field (though many get them anyway – and a few have worked FOR me) or climbing every high peak in the Adirondacks like the late, great Kaos did. Maybe I could shoot for something like collecting a complete set of unopened boxes of Monster cereals from the 1970s (you know, Franken Berry, Boo Berry, Count Chocula, Fruit Brute, etc.) but that wouldn’t be useful from the conversational standpoint because people would think that was, well, weird. It’s like when I used to actually talk about curling and get all the curious looks and smart-ass responses. Forget it.
Perhaps having a goal is a way of keeping a person’s mind off of real life in the here and now. There are so many strivers because if people actually stopped and immersed themselves in their situation in the here and now they’d go mad or lose all hope. As long as you keep marching forward with your eyes on a distant horizon you can’t see what you’re stepping in today. That’s a key to a successful life in 21st century America. It’s the energy that keeps the perpetual student going. As long as you’re still taking courses toward that degree, as long as you’re still working toward that better marathon time, as long as you keep having kids and advancing their lives forward you have yet to fail completely. Lack of failure = success. That is the true American Dream.
Keep jogging toward that horizon everyone. Don't look down and don't look back. We'll all get there sooner or later.
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