Overcoming Tragedy

"The tragedy in life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach."– Benjamin Mays

This quote by Benjamin Mays is both central and pertinent of one’s being. The word tragedy refers to and is defined in the American College Dictionary as something dreadful, fatal, and even pathetic.  The word tragedy does not tell the whole story in referring to one’s life.  Having goals is necessary for one’s mental health, and defines who we are as people. A person without goals cannot and does not live as a fully functioning healthy human being.  Freud defined a healthy individual as one who can and does love and work.  Inherent in Freud’s statement, is an individual with a goal. Loving and working does not happen by accident and without effort.

With a goal, an individual has direction and purpose.   When you have a goal, you have to think, plan, research, implement or place effort to accomplish the task. In other words, look at one’s behavior and you will likely figure out that individual’s goal or goals.  Goals should be specific, clear, measurable and reasonable.  The more realistic the goal, the more attainable it is.

An illustration of poorly defined goals is as follows: “I am going to lose weight” and” I am going to run tomorrow.” These statements are neither precise, nor measurable and as a result not defined well.  The goals “I am going to lose 5 pounds in the next 30 days” or “I am going to run for five minutes tomorrow” are clear, specific, measurable, reasonable, attainable and well defined.

For me, I planned to run 20 miles last Sunday.  In order to accomplish that, I selected a 20 mile trail to run.  Monday, I ran a 5 mile loop.  Today, Secretariat and I will hit the trail for our run.  I have five days to run at least 25 miles in order to accomplish my training goal for the week.  My 50 mile goal for this week is a sub goal since my main goal is to run the “Way Too Cool” 50 K. next month.  Notice my goal is specific, clear, measurable, reasonable and attainable.  In other words, my behavior defines who I am.