Is What You Want REALLY What You Want?

What is your goal, your main desire in life? What is it you want so badly that you can almost taste it, touch it, smell it? What is it that you're working towards?

Is it really what you want?

Will that goal quench an insatiable thirst once you reach and drink of it? Will attaining it mean you're done, you'll coast through the rest of your life without another goal being set?

Will you be satisfied?

When I consider these questions, examine my goals, I think about high school, the endless hours sitting in class, taking notes, tests, quizzes, thinking about what I was going to do once I graduated, what I wanted to do.

I couldn't wait to graduate and put an end to the monotonous days spent at Madison. I wanted to get out into the world, start the next chapter of life, see what it held. The first day of my freshman year, graduation seemed so far away; when that day in June came four years later, time had seemed to pass very quickly, drifting away like smoke from an extinguished candle.

Graduating had been a goal. I achieved it. Looking back now, nearly 42 years later, I realize how much better I could have been, the grades I could have attained if only I'd applied myself. In other words, I reached my goal without fully committing myself to it.

And I regret it now.

Today I wish I could be back there, sitting in Mr. Gillson's civics class, or Mrs. Fehr's journalism class, but I know I can't. I can't go back and work harder during baseball practice, can't become a better player. Can't go back and treat a few people a little better.

I reached my goal but it has become hollow over the passing years.

That's the thing about goals. They can feel amazingly good once you reach them but, as time passes, they can come to mean less to you, lose their value. The real satisfaction I got was high school and playing baseball. It wasn't graduation, it was the daily grind of getting homework done at an acceptable level, riding that bus every morning until I got my driver's license, struggling to make it through Mrs. Downs' French class and, yes, the musty, stale sweat-smell of the locker room while getting dressed for baseball practice.

It was the journey, not the destination. Enjoy the road you're traveling right now, every step of it; be the best that you can while getting there.

One day, you might reach your goal but what you'll remember most was the route that got you there.