Goals

Goals change throughout a life. Goals differ between those with resources and those without. Understanding these processes is a road to mindful compassion.

 

Our American culture is currently driven by commercial materialism, bolstered by constant media indoctrination. Hawkers on TV, radio and the Web make huge assumptions about the needs and goals of listeners. The poor are encouraged to go into debt to ride the same wave of consumption as the well-off. The well-off are encouraged to flaunt their prosperity, not share it. They are lulled by the capitalist myth that super-wealth for the few leads to general prosperity for the most without the aid of socially responsible government.

 

Pulling my goals away from consumerism and materialism was the best process of my life. Considering what I need, as opposed to what I want, is key to my responsible humanist practice as I perceive it. What I need is relatively simple. What I want is often unimportant to my actual happiness.

 

My goals now are those of an older man. Relative health, mobility, financial stability. These are not the goals of the young in a materialistic world. They have the luxury of taking health and mobility for granted. Therefore, financial stability seems less important than making money to enjoy the world's many pleasures, such as travel, entertainment, partying and accumulating goodies. Few young people see the value of developing a daily practice of health maintenance, financial responsibility and social action for positive change. Those few are the precious jewels of our species.

 

Being conscious of my motivation, my goals, is essential to staying on course with my humanist practice, my process of trying to be the best human being I can be from moment to moment. I must maintain flexibility in my goals to be considerate, compassionate. And I must carefully choose the partners with whom I share certain goals. Fear of change will sabotage any chance to accomplish the chief goal of practice, staying on my path to greater awareness and compassion in all things.