Bricks and Plans

The imagery of bricks hung around with me all day after my posting.

As I went through my day: work, driving home, being with An Teaglach, going about my activities for the evening - I realized that there really was not a question of great strides of change (although those do happen - I know that better than anyone), but rather than using the our daily lives - our "bricks" - to build towards the events and goals of our lives.

But in building a plan is required. Bricks by themselves do not form themselves into anything (except a pile, of course). And perhaps that is where I have consistently fallen down - not potentially in the activity, but in the plan that activity is supposed to serve. These are, of course, otherwise known as goals.

Why do I have problems setting goals? Because in a sense goals bind you: they put you on one path and exclude others and I have always valued my options to act. Unfortunately you reach a point where by maintaining the options to act, you lose the ability to do anything because you haven't focused, which is where I seem to find myself in so many ways now.

The other problem is simply deciding which set of goals to set. There are plenty of guidances available for types of goals, categories of goals - but I am always dogged by the idea that there are goals I should set, rather than one's I want to set. So maybe that's the root cause I need to address.

How are your bricks? Do you have a plan, or are they merely sitting in a pile waiting to be used?