Goals v Acceptance

In an earlier blog one of my correspondents was talking about how changes in society are affecting the environment in which our children are growing up.  Whether you are running a business or just reading self-help books we are all exhorted to set and pursue goals.  Some people would have us believe that all we have to do is to visualise our future powerfully enough to just ‘reel’ it in’!  After many years of earnest endeavour and experiment, using allsorts of different techniques, I really don’t think it works this way… at least it doesn’t seem to be that way for me.

I do believe that well-formed goals help give us direction but one of the things we hear much less about these days, and is much more counter-cultural, is the value of acceptance.  No matter how powerfully we dream and focus, Life unfolds and hands us all manner of surprises.  Often some of our best experiences come about as a result of apparent ‘accidents’.   Seeking to control everything (which is, of course, and exercise in futility) is doomed to failure and makes it harder for us to keep our minds and hearts open to the forces of serendipity.  Many famous inventors owe their fame to the intervention of these random factors. 

I think there is still mileage in this prayer:-

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference….”

What do you think?

Tags: acceptance, goals

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 at 20:09 and is filed under Business Change, General, Personal Change, Values & Philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.