I have a love hate relationship with the end of the year. I love reviewing what experiences transpired during each of the 365 days of the year and hate it when I realized I missed a majority of my goals. Taking inventory of your experiences is just as painful as taking inventory at IKEA. The inventory process at IKEA goes archaically like this. A piece of paper says I have 15,367 pieces of light bulbs floating somewhere in the square footage that is equal to 20 football fields. A team of three counters plus myself must somehow magically count the same number while miraculously not add to the shrinkage of lost inventory by breaking any of the said light bulbs that had been dumped generously through 13 pallets and inevitably hidden in all the nooks and crannies of the IKEA abyss. Mix in the fact that I am the world's worst bean counter. EVER. I am so talented that I can count a pile three times and get four different numbers for it. Ironically I can balance the budget of a $15 million dollar sales forecast to an accuracy of a 3% variance rate. Clearly I was hardwired for a bigger picture.
Real life inventory parallels the same level of insanity. We are conditioned to achieve a set of benchmarks regardless if it brings you personal pleasure. If you don't meet these benchmarks than society deems you as a failure. Sometimes you meet these benchmarks and you still feel like a failure. I'm starting to think goal setting is a definitive way of setting you up to fail. It took me 35 years but this 2014, I'm letting go of this futile exercise of failing. The vicious circle of insanity is going to stop.
I watched a video recently about some high profiled channellers (http://vimeo.com/38831579). In this extraordinary video about six humans that allow their physical bodies to be essentially "possessed" by a higher source of energy a thought provoking spin on the popular law of attraction emerged. One of the channellers, Geoffrey Hoppe channels an angelic being named Tobias. At the 22:17 mark of the lengthy, in depth video Tobias passionately lectures that setting goals "is so mental... so yesterday... so 80's... It is a mental exercise of frustration set in futility because in actuality you will attract everything that you had originally set out to experience in this lifetime." This simple statement knocked me off my well conditioned pedestal that it took me a week to digest this powerful mindset.
Take this analogy. You decided that you would like a gift and with the wonderful help of society, nagging parents, Kim Kardashian and the well meaning mentors in your life, you deemed that your gift should be in a 8" x 8" box, wrapped in vegan paper that never was tested on animals and tied neatly with a recyclable, GMO-free bow. What you didn't know, is that the Universe creates the form that best assists you on your journey here so sends you not one, but like 50 packages. Most people are so focused on recognizing only that one package that they actually miss all the other 49 Universe gifts or even worse, open up that one gift to discover that it wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. These disappointments are created from expectations. Expectations are formed when you set goals. Setting goals, narrows your vision to a single target so everything else is tuned out. You miss the beautiful depth of your journey which are all the small moments and ultimately miss the many packages of happiness continually delivered to you courtesy of the Universe.
I just came back from hanging at the pub with my sister and Jenn, my husband's second lesbian work wife (long story better fitted to a different blog post). I announced to them that in 2014, I am rebelling and not setting any goals. You should have seen the reaction on their faces. It was like if I told them I was giving up meat, moving to Antarctica and selling my organs to the black market. I mean, don't get me wrong... I get it. I am a hardcore, textbook Type A personality. I enjoy ticking off to-do lists, relish in not just achieving goals but crushing them and this go to survival skill is so ingrained in everything I do that it's as natural as breathing. Hell, I am so brilliant at this task that I can give lectures on the art of setting and achieving your goals in my sleep.
Something funny happened along the way though. That art no longer brought me the same level of happiness. I started feeling frustrated, disappointed, angry and then that gamut of emotions lead me to feeling anxious, worried and then I felt alone. I started to second guess my goals, over analyze my life and question EVERYTHING. I get why the older people deemed the thirties as the grind. You get into a routine of expectations set out by society but then your Spirit gets so antsy that you're not living the TRUE story that you wrote. It's a constant battle of doing what you want versus what is expected. Instead, other factors and systems are driving your insincere story and defining your dishonest life. Beauty manufacturers and my mother bombard me and tell me I'm not beautiful unless I lose 20 pounds. Marriage counsellors and Dr. Phil tells me that unless I have sex an average of once a week I am not in a healthy and loving relationship. My accountant advises me that unless my sales goal is not growing by 15% each year I am stagnant. Lululemon preaches that unless I jump off a cliff and suspend myself in a constant state of an adrenaline rush then I'm boring. Twitter reminds me that if I'm not plugged in then I was so two seconds ago. My great grandparents warned me that if I don't save up money now for my children's education now then their future is doomed. Expedia emails me that if I don't travel the world then I live a sheltered life and might as well live under a rock. Damn... what a depressing state.
I have decided to change the game playing in this life. I am going to climb the loftiest mountain, throw a proverbial wish into the Universe and park my ass their until it boomerangs back to me. I am done with setting goals, pushing myself further by making myself faster, stronger, braver, skinnier, richer, have bigger boobs... done. I am going to accept that everything I have right now is everything I need. I am going to stop comparing my situation to other people. I am going to lower my expectations and carry the humility that I don't need to know everything. I am going to have faith that my Spirit will attract whatever I had pre-determined was needed on this journey and just roll with it. In this quiet, I am going to finally open all 50 packages gifted to me from the Universe. I am positive that it is in this gratitude that real happiness will emerge.
