Reaching for the Moon

Sometimes I feel that I'm a failure at life.  When I'm feeling motivated and enthusiastic about things, I make lists and set super high goals, yet when I can't accomplish them, I tend to give up completely.  A long time ago I actually decided I didn't believe in goals because I figured goals were just something to break and feel guilty about.  I admit, I'm probably terrible at making feasible goals, but I also always hated making goals when I wasn't really feeling it, and was just looking forward to when I could check it off as being done.  I felt a goal should be more a means to an end --actually, that there shouldn't be an end, it should just be the way things are.  Does that make sense?  For example, I could make a goal to go off chocolate for a year, but that would just make me a sad, deprived chocoholic until the set period was over.  Yeah, I may lose some weight, but in the long run, it wouldn't be changing my attitude much.  On my mission, we set goals to talk to a certain number of people each day, and I found myself thinking of people as numbers, and I resisted talking to people altogether for fear my motivations weren't in the right place.  What good did that do?  I haven't made an actual, write-it-down goal in years.  Perhaps it's just my bad attitude, but rather than choosing to "fake it 'til you make it," I've just chosen to do nothing at all.

Today I finally realized what was missing. At church, someone made an interesting observation.  We all have "To Do" lists, but maybe we should have "To Be" lists instead.  I mean, "To Do" lists are good, and they help us get from point A to point B in our daily lives, but I think that having a "To Be" list would help us to get from point A to point B in our eternal progression.  If we focused on becoming more, changing our perspective and inherently our motivations, I think the "To Do" lists would take care of themselves.  It's something I'm still trying to wrap my head around, and I'm not yet sure what I would put on my "To Be" list, but I like the idea.  It's more about changing from the inside out, rather than the other way around.  Yes, I'll still have my "To Do" lists, but when it's looked at through the perspective of what I'm trying to become, it may take away some of the drudgery, and help me to have a better attitude about things.  For example, maybe if I decided "To Be" a cleaner person, I wouldn't get so downhearted when I finally got around to cleaning something to check it off my list, and then watched it get dirty all over again, but rather, I'd just keep it clean as I went because that is what I had decided to be.    I know, it is a subtle nuance, but I think it could still help me change for the better as I focus on what I am wanting to become.


What would be on your "To Be" list?