Goals?
The prompts this week in my mental health journal are regarding goals and purpose. Examples of the prompts are ~
”Think about all your accomplishments. What goal would you like to still accomplish? Describe what has prevented you from reaching it.”
“Is there a professional dream you would like to pursue? Describe the first step you can take to make it a reality.”
When I contemplate goals and purpose and what those dreams looked like for me when I was younger I realize that I was given an ideal that was not for me. Growing up I did not fantasize about getting married, buying a house, or having children. I wanted to escape and get away from my mother. The sort of life we lived ~ moving from place to place, working minimum wage jobs, and leaving when there was some sort of interpersonal conflict at work or in a relationship. My mom still lives that sort of fleeting, leaf in the wind existence. She moved to Guam and did not even tell me!
I knew that I wanted to go to school/college and become a lawyer like Elle Woods from Legally Blonde. I wanted to have stability, clothes, and nice things so I could blend in with others. My fixation growing up was learning, getting good grades, and padding my high school/college resume so that I could get a job. I went to church often and engrained in me was the idea that being a good person, and helping the less fortunate was the way to eternal salvation. If you were a good person, then good things happened to you. The lie that working hard paid off.
I worked in social services, and helping my community. In heart wrenching jobs and with people in impossible situations. I am a hopeful person but I now know life is cruel, harsh and unfair. I ended up getting my Masters in Social Work prior to age of 30. I was unmarried with an advanced degree and a stable career. What do you do when you accomplish your goals and there seems to be endless mindless days in the future?
I began to spiral and burnt out from the secondary trauma of being a social worker. I could deescalate people from psychosis, I knew how to navigate the trauma 1 hospital in the Seattle area, I could work/study/stay awake for 12+ hours. I could dispense medications while supervising children without a home. I could call law enforcement when I needed support and was worried about a client’s safety. I went to court, wrote reports, and testified. I could do many things the rest of society ignores because it’s a bummer. Yet I was empty, and worried I wasn’t doing enough.
Maybe I am disillusioned, or in my nihilist phase. If I could go back I would go to school out of state, and major in business or some field I could get a higher paying job that was not taxing emotionally, physically, and spiritually. I am glad that I did not fall into the trap of falling in love, getting married and having children because that was expected of me. I would be exhausted, unhappy and broke.
As someone who did what was expected of them the concept of productivity and goals seems outdated. Why be productive when I can just be? Learning to sit in the stillness and breath in and out is what I now choose to focus in. I have put in my dues and hard work. I try to give back when I can. I try to protect myself from the tragedies of my professional life. I am not being dramatic when I say there are tragedies in my civilian job. I carry it with me when I am being romanced and living my hedonistic life in a dreamy haze.
My friend said I am a socialite which in a sense is true. I wake up when I want to, spend money how I want to, have lovers, and live a sensual life. I was deprived of pleasure and emotion and now I want all of life’s pleasures. I don’t want to have goals. I don’t want to quantify my life by metrics of productivity. I know that measuring my life by those standards will not fulfil nor sustain me.
During covid I took the LSAT and I have contemplated returning to higher education and pursing my PhD. But no matter how many letters there are after my name, the qualifications will not placate the emptiness I feel inside. I don’t know if I will ever fill the emptiness and otherness I feel inside of me. I do understand that the longest relationship I will have is the one with myself and I need to be gentle and non-judgemental. I won’t find myself in another person, or through wanderlust. Socrates said something along the lines that no matter where you are you bring yourself with you. Well I guess I need to work on my relationship with myself.