Estimate Vs. Actual

Topics that have come up today are leading me to think about my future. Often when we sit down and try to seriously consider where our lives are headed, the resulting thoughts are either swept up in fantasy and imagination of ourselves somewhere else, doing something we actually like for a living, or the future seems so mystifying that simply thinking about it can be painful or frightening. We take stock of our lives based on how well we have pushed ourselves along down whatever particular path or discipline will be required to complete the metamorphosis into an ideal version of our selves.

I'm old enough now that five or six years ago I probably had this thought program running often, since back then I would have been starting college. Whatever my specific goals for back then were, I'm totally sure that I've missed the mark on all of them, apart from graduating. Should I be happy with that? What were those goals anyway? Think back to five years ago and what you wanted then. Can you confidently list things that you never stopped thinking about or striving for? Probably not--everyday life isn't that way for most people, I think. 

So now that I'm out of school and I can compare my estimated future to my actual present reality, it occurs to me that types of goals my past self had were useless. My thinking wasn't structured around how to make myself into a better person or advance a discipline. It was magical thinking, like a kid daydreaming about being Spider-man. Many exiting from high school do not have goals so much as fantasies where they are not themselves anymore. In this scenario there is no thought given to what can be done today to meet that goal. I think that's why these types of goals are so fleeting and hard to remember, they were not so much plans as escapism. 

It's what you do everyday that defines who you are. And so, if you have a goal or a plan for your future, do something NOW! Find a way that you can get yourself a few inches closer everyday. Discipline is the key to transforming wishful thoughts into results. 

(For those who are curious, my main goal for the future is to stay alive. Expanding on that, I'd like to become the kind of person who is especially skilled at living--say, the type of guy who could get exiled into the wilderness and not starve or die of exposure/animals).