Beyond the Horizon

Christina asks:

You’ve written a fair amount about short- to medium-term goals, but I’m curious about things that are more than a year or two away. Do you have any long-term goals or dreams?

Oddly enough, I don’t really. I occasionally have ideas of things that would be cool if they happened, but those aren’t goals. I’m not actively doing anything towards a specific aim that’s more than a year or two away.

Now that’s not to say that I don’t think beyond a few months away. I’ve written before about my fear of cutting off possibilities. I try to do things that keep long-term options open. I’ve been saving for retirement since I got my first paycheck, even though I have no specific plans about exactly how or when. I keep abreast of the current job market and update my resume regularly, because I never know when I might need to look for something. I file a lot things away for future use, even if they’re not part of some plan I’m working on. I have strategies for the long run, rather than goals or plans.

What’s at the core of this is that my long-term goal is the same as my short term one: To live a fulfilling life. I’ve tried to do the long-term planning thing before, and it’s never worked out for me. My realistic planning horizon is just too short. I can’t say what fulfillment is going to look like a year or more from now, in part because of the uncertainty of things, in part because I don’t know who I will be then.

Update

Fitness: Biked 18 miles
Writing: 250 words, 269 average

Comments

[Christina]

Totally. The future is crazy and I like your point about having strategies rather than plans. It's something like my approach to childrearing--which is actually my mom's. She emphasized being able to adapt and learn skills when we needed them, instead of worrying about teaching us anything in particular in advance.

But once upon a time I was jealous of your ability to make five year plans, of how your life seemed to change at a temperate Midwestern pace, when my seasons seemed to be the fires and mudslides of disaster ecology. (though of course I had a part in that)