I wish I coined the phrase...it is a great one! But Susan David is the author of it and I have to give her the honor she deserves because she is an amazing human being. Such a powerhouse of intellect, charm, grace and insight. If you haven’t listened to her TED talks, check her out.
She is referring to our human desire to be happy all the time, never be in pain, everything is resolve, neat and tidy. Her point is that these could only be the goals of dead people because if you are still among the living, these goals are not possible for us. I mean we can HAVE them as goals but we lack the ability to ever meet them. The only people that could possibly ever have and maintain these particular goals are dead people, because their lives are resolved. No more questions, or pain or laughter or anything...the life, the grand magical game is in fact over.
And when she said this, I realized I had never stopped to wonder whether or not my goals in this life were realistic. Ever. I mean, I just had them. And it isn’t like I wanted to become an astronaut, or a model or something. I think I have always known what I wanted and for the most part, did the work to get it. Life goals, I think I pretty much nailed that, but emotional goals? Fucking totally unrealistic!
I have historically, well fuck, no that isn’t true, because I still feel this way even as I type, I have wanted to be happy, all the time. I have wanted other people in my life to be happy and I have set about making sure that I do whatever I can, for myself and others, to bring about the conditions for happiness to flourish. So whenever sadness, disappointment, anger, or pain arrive for their inevitable visit, I feel as if I have failed as a human being...my lofty and totally unrealistic goal of happiness all day, all the time, has not been reached and now I must deal with the attendant fall out.
And today I realize that happiness all the time would only be achieved if I am dead. Then I can pick and choose perpetual emotional states and maintain them. I can also select physical states as well because my life is over and I can make it be whatever the fuck I want. But I realized when Susan said this, that I didn’t want to have dead people goals anymore. I want to have real life, living goals. Emotional as well as physical. I want to have realistic goals for myself and extend that same courtesy to others.
Living people goals seems like a much harder ask. Like I have to set realistic and appropriate ones that allow for there to be margin for error. I mean I get up everyday with the hope for happiness, joy and release from pain, mental and physical. And I seek to bring that to all I encounter. However, somedays I wake up, stub my toe, step in cat barf, see ants all over my kitchen counter and then drop a glass cat food bowl on the floor. And that is within the first 10 minutes I am awake. Those days are often harder to bring the joy.
I do have the option to start my day over at any time...and often, I am able to do so...just decide right there to ignore the shitshow start and begin again. And other days, try as I might, I am just fucked. And so is the day.
So what do living people goals look like?
Fuck if I know, I have been living with dead people goals for so long I am going to have to give this whole new concept a little time to percolate...
But as a starting point, I think living people goals are fluid and dynamic. They are alterable, and shifting. They take into account the humanness of all involved and are flexible and soft. They are puffy and amorphous. They are not rigid, hard or demeaning.
That is my beginning with living people goals...I am gonna have to get back to you when I have a better idea of what this looks like in practice...
I know, absolutely, for me, living people goals start with the concept and practice that Spirit is running the show. Not me. I can’t be in charge of anything, because, and I am not sure how this happened, or why, but me alone, all I am ever going to have is dead people goals...
Again...still.
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