Wishes And Goals
ACCORDING to psychologist Sydney Jourard: “Most of our joy in life comes from our happy relationships with other people and most of our disappointments in life come from unhappy relationship with others. It means most of our problems are “people problems”. “Remember that we like ourselves because of the way we feel about ourselves when we are with others. A small test can be carried out to ascertain how we get on with others. If we are talking to another person for 3 minutes and there is no response from him or her, it is almost sure that we are talking on a subject of interest only to ourselves. One can become a brilliant conversationalist by listening to other people also!
Brian Tracey, author of “Focal Point” says: Only three per cent of adults put their goals in writing: the other 97 per cent have wishes, hopes and fantasies. People without goals are doomed to work forever for people who have definite goals. Living without goals is like wandering in the woods seeking something, talking to trees, streams and rocks and coming out at the other end old and worn out. We cannot change the world, can we? But we can change one person i.e. ourselves. We can, if we want to, make ourselves the kind of person others admire and respect.
We can become the role model, if we set ourselves up as an inspired enthusiastic person. Our strength lies by a thousand subtle influences, like friends and neighbours, books and biographies, the very world we live in, by the spirit of our forefathers whose legacy we inherit and the quality of life we try to build everyday. In fact, our lives get better only when we get better and if we are not getting better, we are definitely getting worse. We can get better only by improving our quality of thinking.
The voids we perceive are our greatest assets. Our ultimate state of fulfillment is not in events, possessions, name or fame but in our achievements, not for ourselves but raising the standards of others. Something missing in our lives could be our great motivation like compassion, forgiveness, love and raising the level of others. Socrates said: “To discover ourselves, think for ourselves.” When there is no thinking life is stagnant and withers automatically! Let it not happen. Where there is thinking, we can bend down to help someone else; otherwise we reach somewhere groping for light.