Goalies

Goals that seem just out of reach–these I like.  They make me stretch, literally or figuratively, preferably both.  They make me move out into uncertainty, into fear of failure and whatever else is at stake.  They make me act shamelessly.  They make me act as if I am not paralyzed by shame–by the sense of flawedness and embarrassing tastes and impulses and general wrongness–and the second I act as if I am not paralyzed by shame, I no longer am.  

All very complex and philosophical.  Not that my goals always are.  They’re often contrarian in nature, see, for example, the oh-so-lucrative PhD in English, which, though not at all lucrative (fulfilling, yes, status-acquiring, not so much), grindingly hard work to get and use in a heavy teaching load job.  If you’ve read my blog before you know that I just did a marathon–now that’s just silly, in a way, all that running to nowhere in particular and without anyone chasing me or anything.  I’m thinking about this goal thing because goals structure my life, and structure me I think–my self–in lieu of some other things I’m supposed to have acquired in the course of development and all that but didn’t.  [Where were you when they were passing out healthy self-regulation and coping skills. . .]  And meeting the marathon goal has left me rather without one.  I have some work ones, and I’m in the process of house-hunting, but those aren’t the same kinds of things.  I need the goal for goal’s sake.  

have a little one though, one that is more than “just out of reach”–it may be entirely out of reach from what I hear/read.  I want to see if I can do a pull-up ever.  I’m not a little/strong gymnast type, I’m more of a sturdy medium-tallish type, with broad shoulders and lots of lean body mass.  In other words I weight a lot.  And while I’ve become a lot leaner than I was, lowered body fat percerntage while all very well does not mean lighter as such, due to the muscle-building results of various things I do.  And the thing about the pull-up, you see, that makes it so difficult is that I HAVE TO LIFT UP MY OWN BODY WEIGHT WITH MY OWN MUSCLES!  It’s a bit shocking and outrageous, I know.  I read that some people simply can’t ever do a pull-up.  This, of course, makes it an ideal goal.  [Perverseness at work.}  Trying is the only way to find out if I can though.  So I’m working at it and we’ll see, after a good long while has passed, how much I can do.  I already like the results of messing around with the assisted pull-up machine–my shoulders/shoulder blade area feel all nice and activated and strong and stable, compared to how they were (except for the intermittent soreness, which is no small soreness).

I wonder though, about this idea of using goals as a way of giving oneself structure, shape, solidness, groundedness.  It’s not a bad little strategy, but I know other people don’t have to rig those things up lest they feel like they’ll splinter or disintegrate (some people, I should say; I know there are also those who know just what I mean).  

Explore posts in the same categories: ADHD, Anxiety, Body-mind, Coping strategies, Failure, Fear, Living, Psychology, Risk, Running, Shame, Work, perverseness

Tags: goal, grounding, marathon, PhD, pull-up, structure

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