Do you set personal goals for yourself?

Goals Gone Rogue

*** Do you set personal goals for yourself? ***

All the Mandarins
Society’s gatekeepers
Starting with our parents
Have told us
Again and again
One cannot progress
Without setting goals
Personal and societal

Started with many
From being ‘good’
To achieving something
Substantial
Socially acceptable
A philanthropic and
Philosophic legend
A musical genius
A high ranking
Martial artist

But

Reality set in
Discovered that anticipation
Was significantly better
Than realization
Or rather
Completion

Goals only give
A very general direction
Even when planned
Step by step
Reality seldom
Cooperates

Even when it seems to
The result is never
What the original ‘goal’
Envisioned or sought
Usually something
Just close enough

So, do I set personal goals?
Any more
Just slight indications
Of direction
Anything more specific
Seldom pans out

Have left the things of my youth
To the time where
They belonged
Now open to whatever
Possibilities present
Themselves
Now

–LE – 10/25/26