Unrealistic Expectations

Two weeks ago, while I was trying to impart some final words of wisdom about Macbeth to senior students who had been ingesting and imbibing a steady stream of sugar in all its many forms throughout the day, I looked forward to the final bell, thinking my Christmas break would go like this: 16 blissful days in which I would quickly and economically finish my Christmas shopping, watch as many Christmas movies on Lifetime and the Hallmark channel as I could find, catch up on the latest happenings in Salem, home to the characters in Days of Our Lives, a soap opera (or daytime drama, to be politically correct) I have followed sporadically since I was in high school, read a stack of books I’ve been wanting time to read, and spend six days in Arkansas with family, observing an extended Christmas this year because of work schedules and obligations of various family members.

I had not counted on attending the funeral of a friend from church a few days before Christmas or the rain and cold temperatures that would keep me inside several days of the break dealing with a headache and aching bones. Nor had I counted on how hard Christmas shopping would be for me, dealing with crowds, lines, and big stores with lots of square footage to cover.

Now, with the return to school imminent on Monday, I look back at the previous two weeks and realize that I did accomplish much of what I set out to do. The Christmas presents were bought, wrapped, and given. I saw a lot of TV movies about the true spirit of Christmas and learned that not much had happened in Salem since Thanksgiving. The days in Arkansas were filled with visiting with family and friends and enjoying the always plentiful, delicious foods and treats of the season, leaving me with a few extra pounds to target for one of my New Year’s resolutions. And though so far, I’ve only read three books of the stack I set aside, I still have the rest of today and Saturday and Sunday, so maybe I can get through another one or two.

Were my expectations for the Christmas break too ambitious or unrealistic? Probably, especially in the size of the bag of books I took to Arkansas and back. But, at the same time, I believe setting goals is important. A friend of mine from my college days at UT-Arlington, Rollin DeLap, who was director of the UTA Baptist Student Union three of my four years there, used to say this: “He who shoots at nothing hits it every time.” In other words, without a goal, we fail to accomplish much. Proverbs 29:18 says it this way: “Where there is no vision the people perish.” Now, some commentators limit the word “vision” to some sort of prophetic revelation from God, but considering Solomon’s wisdom throughout the book of Proverbs, I believe the verse can be applied to individuals are well as to societies or countries. Vision, that dream for something better, a goal to attain, is what propels us forward, both individually and as a group. When President Kennedy set the goal for the US to land men on the moon by the end of the 1960s, few thought it was a realistic goal. The American space program, quickly cobbled together after the Russian launch of Sputnik, had more failures than successes initially. At the time, it seemed that the Russians would dominate space, that the American effort was a case of “too little too late.” Yet in July of 1969, the world watched as Neil Armstrong took that “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

I’ve read some authors who encourage readers to set “achievable goals” to avoid becoming discouraged and giving up on goals like weight loss or financial stability. But I think a lot of people set goals that require little or no effort, goals that are certainly achievable but, in reality, accomplish little. I think Rollin’s advice about aiming high, knowing that you may not hit the mark you set but that you’ll do more with a goal than without, is sound.

As I look into the New Year, there are some new goals I plan to set, many of them seeming beyond my capability and past performances, but all the same, I want to take a shot at them and just see what happens and what I can accomplish by this time next year.

After all, at this time last year I only had the desire to write a blog, and now I have not only done so but have received some encouraging words from people who have read the entries. And if every goal I set is not met, what of it? At least I’ve had the experience of trying. Thomas Edison did not regard his more than 2,000 attempts to find something to serve as the filament for his light bulb as failures. He said he just found more than 2,000 materials that would not work. In the words of the poet Robert Browning, “… a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,/Or what’s a heaven for?”

So as I look forward to the year 2012, I plan to try to stretch myself, to reach for things possibly beyond my grasp, to attempt things beyond my capabilities, to achieve what I can, and to learn from what the world calls “failures.”