Life Angles: A Striking Discovery About The Goal-Making Procedure

Hello again and sorry for the drought. I have been thinking for a while about what to do my next blog entry about, and this morning I had an experience that drove me to the blog. I just had to write about it.

As a bit of foreshadowing, make sure that you read to the end, even if you at any point begin to think that I'm just sounding like a superstitious, sentimental kid who's making a big deal out of a random coincidence.

You'll see that there's a point to it all. There's a moral to the story. I learned something very valuable from this experience, and you just may relate to it as well.

Begin story:

-iPhone note entry, June 9th, 2010:

"...Oh. My. Goodness. This can't be a coincidence.

I think that God is trying to teach me something. Usually when I set a goal, I wait until the optimum time as far as day of week, day of month, date, etc.

I tend to wait until the next week to start my goal. Or the next month. Or the next even number. I'm always putting goals off for no good reason other than to coddle that part of my nature that is wired with OCD tendencies; unnecessarily wasting time, and detrimentally postponing good things..."

I wrote that just this morning.

By the way, I'm not saying that I have OCD or anything; I'm just saying that I think I have some OCD characteristics, like being a perfectionist, etc. I think that most of us have some ADD or OCD tendencies, and they're a part of what makes us who we are. I believe that those tendencies in minor concentrations are normal.

Anyway, I'm sure you're familiar with the concept of creating charts to track your goals and keep you on track.

Well, I had written out one such chart in May. I wanted to devour a certain religious book. I had set out to read 40 pages per day, so that I could finish it in a month (the book is 1,140 pages long, and the pages are BIG).

Turns out that the goal was impractical for my schedule and current distractions, so I failed miserably, and haven't even read the book again since that first day I made the goal.

Today is Wednesday, June 9th, 2010. A random day of the week, a random date. And an odd number.

Just now, I decided to start my goal over again. But instead of waiting till the start of the week, or even tomorrow which would be not only an even number, but my FAVORITE number (10), I decided to buckle up and just start the goal today!

It was just a random urge that popped into my head. I didn't want to waste any more time. I preferred to put the priceless value of the present time that I had at my disposal ahead of my OCD-esque urges to wait until the perfect day to start my goal.

So I grabbed my iPhone so I could change my May goal chart into a current, more realistic chart that started with today's date...

[Yes, that's right, this is me putting in a shameless plug for iPhones, even though Apple isn't paying me a dime for it...

Every blog I've done so far I've done entirely on my iPhone, from all the writing, to the posting. I have a good app for posting. With the tap of a finger, my blog is posted. No using web browsers, no logging in required.

iPhones are just so wonderful. Everyone needs one, except maybe elderly people whose hands shake a bit, and aren't as steady as they used to be...

But if you don't fit into that category, go pick yourself up an iPhone. And check out http://www.Apple.com if you haven't seen the new iPhone 4 yet! They just announced it two days ago. It's incredible. I'm speechless.

WWWOOOOOOOOOOWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Apple rules the world. You need an iPhone. End of story.

...Or, in the very worst case scenario, you should at least get one of the wannabe iPhone copies that copycat companies with no vision of their own have begun to create.

But don't get me started on that... You know what, I should probably just do a blog about Apple. I think I'll do that.

Later.

For now, back to the subject...]

So with a simple light touch, I summoned my trusty note-taking App, and with a flick, I watched my notes scroll until I got to the one I was looking for (I could have done a search instead of scrolling, but I didn't need to in this case). It was a note called "My Gospel Study Tracking Chart".

I decided to cut this specific goal down to more manageable pieces this time. I decided on 10 pages per day instead of 40. So I did some quick calculations in my head, and figured it'd take between 3 and 4 months to read 1,140 pages at 10 pages per day.

I then proceeded to copy and paste my previous chart, stretch it out from today's date to the end of September, and edit the month names.

Once I did that, my plan was to just start at today and add 10 pages each day till I got to 1,140 pages or the end of September (whichever came first), and then add or delete any extra or missing dates so that the chart would go from today till the day I hit page 1,140.

So there I went. Touch the next line. Put a dash, then the next number. It took me a few minutes and some fancy fingerwork, but eventually I was almost done. I watched the numbers reach slowly toward the target number of 1,140.

I wasn't even looking at the dates. I was working with the second-to-last line on the screen, and each time I would touch the bottom line, the App would automatically shift all lines up one notch and bring up the previously invisible line to become the new bottom line.

Am I confusing you? The point is that I couldn't see the end of the dates that I had written out. I just kept touching the next line, putting a dash, then the next number.

All of a sudden, I hit the number 1,140. I looked at the date and was SHOCKED to find that it was the very end of the dates that I had written out. IT WAS THE VERY LAST DAY IN SEPTEMBER!!!

How chance, how improbable that the random day that I got the urge to re-start my goal, and 10 pages per day to the random number of 1,140, landed me on a perfectly OCD-friendly date! That really got my attention.

NOT ONLY THAT, but it was coincidentally the last date I had written out in my quick estimation of approximately how far out I'd need to go on the calendar to reach 1,140 pages at 10 pages per day.

I'm thinking that maybe it wasn't just "coincidental". What do you think?

SEPTEMBER 30th!!! THE LAST DAY OF THE MONTH!!! THE DAY BEFORE THE FIRST DAY OF THE NEXT MONTH!!!

Okay, I think you get the idea...

But check it out. I decided to post the very chart from my iPhone notes for your visual and comprehensive pleasure:

Jun 9-10
Jun 10-20
Jun 11-30
Jun 12-40
Jun 13-50
Jun 14-60
Jun 15-70
Jun 16-80
Jun 17-90
Jun 18-100
Jun 19-110
Jun 20-120
Jun 21-130
Jun 22-140
Jun 23-150
Jun 24-160
Jun 25-170
Jun 26-180
Jun 27-190
Jun 28-200
Jun 29-210
Jun 30-220
Jul 1-230
Jul 2-240
Jul 3-250
Jul 4-260
Jul 5-270
Jul 6-280
Jul 7-290
Jul 8-300
Jul 9-310
Jul 10-320
Jul 11-330
Jul 12-340
Jul 13-350
Jul 14-360
Jul 15-370
Jul 16-380
Jul 17-390
Jul 18-400
Jul 19-410
Jul 20-420
Jul 21-430
Jul 22-440
Jul 23-450
Jul 24-460
Jul 25-470
Jul 26-480
Jul 27-490
Jul 28-500
Jul 29-510
Jul 30-520
Jul 31-530
Aug 1-540
Aug 2-550
Aug 3-560
Aug 4-570
Aug 5-580
Aug 6-590
Aug 7-600
Aug 8-610
Aug 9-620
Aug 10-630
Aug 11-640
Aug 12-650
Aug 13-660
Aug 14-670
Aug 15-680
Aug 16-690
Aug 17-700
Aug 18-710
Aug 19-720
Aug 20-730
Aug 21-740
Aug 22-750
Aug 23-760
Aug 24-770
Aug 25-780
Aug 26-790
Aug 27-800
Aug 28-810
Aug 29-820
Aug 30-830
Aug 31-840
Sept 1-850
Sept 2-860
Sept 3-870
Sept 4-880
Sept 5-890
Sept 6-900
Sept 7-910
Sept 8-920
Sept 9-930
Sept 10-940
Sept 11-950
Sept 12-960
Sept 13-970
Sept 14-980
Sept 15-990
Sept 16-1000
Sept 17-1010
Sept 18-1020
Sept 19-1030
Sept 20-1040
Sept 21-1050
Sept 22-1060
Sept 23-1070
Sept 24-1080
Sept 25-1090
Sept 26-1100
Sept 27-1110
Sept 28-1120
Sept 29-1130
Sept 30-1140

So now you've seen for yourself the evidence of a divine catalyst for enlightenment. Divine intervention; intervening into the situations in my mind. Intervening into my paradigms, as the extra ingredient needed for a total shift in my goal-making paradigm.

You see, I didn't just brush this coincidence off. I took it as a sign. It was God trying to get my attention; to teach me the lesson for the day, through His infinite Grace and watch-care, like a wise, loving Father who takes His young son aside for a teaching moment.

The moral of the story is NOT to bring me back to incorporating my OCD tendencies into my goal-making processes, simply by having my goals END at the perfect time instead of START at the perfect time.

That would be pointless.

No, God wanted to show me how much time I had been wasting. I was wasting time, one of our most precious commodities, by catering to the OCD-coated parts of my subconscious mind during my goal-making processes.

I have foregone COUNTLESS amounts of productivity in my life by WAITING for the perfect time to start something.

I've even let MONTHS pass, waiting for each Monday, when I was going to start my next goal. Monday would come around, I would get distracted or forget about my goal, then all of a sudden I'd be stuck again waiting for the NEXT Monday. What MADNESS!!! What psychopathy!!! What DELIRIUM!!!

The senselessness of my neurotic practices seems so absurd to me now. I would now much rather start a goal RIGHT AWAY than to put it off until "the perfect time to start", even if it means that my goal starts and ends on random days of the week, or random, uneven dates.

I think that by the Grace of God I've been shown a true principle here, and I think you probably agree.

But it is ironic that He used my OCD tendencies to jolt my mind into an awakening, by having the last day of the goal fall on the last day of the month.

It may seem counterintuitive at first glance that the coincidental appearance of the thing that I loved so much (perfect starting times or in this case ENDING times) is what made me realize that I needed to forsake that very thing.

But we all know that God works in mysterious ways. He knows our minds and He knows how to teach us.

Starting a goal now vs. starting a goal later are sometimes ANTITHETICALLY different in terms of their benefits to us.

The moral of the story is that putting off goals to wait for the perfect time to start them is an utterly foolish practice. It is exponentially more beneficial to start a goal RIGHT NOW, no matter when now is, rather than to wait until "the perfect time" to start it.

So if you, or anyone you know, is involved in the self-sabotaging practice of putting off their goals until the perfect moment, please send them to this blog, and then please call AA (Absurd-aholics Anonymous) today at: 1-800-OCD-GOALS. That's 1-800-623-4625. [Not a real number]

And please... If you don't get help with us, get help somewhere. ;)