The ad reads:

A view from the top.

When you’re striving to reach a goal, it’s always above you. You’re climbing upward and reaching higher. You’re overcoming adversity and winning the race. And when you finally make it to the top, you feel the success—and it feels great.

The analogy of climbing upward for achieving goals strikes me as exactly backward. When I think about my goals, they all involve looking down. In some cases, literally. I’m digging and weeding in the garden. I’m mucking out pig manure and tossing it on the compost. All of these things ground me. They give me a sense of connection with the processes that sustain me.

And what’s the deal with “goals” anyway? I’m not sure I have goals. I have… things I’m doing. I have things I want. It doesn’t feel like I have “goals”. Mostly, I have things that are in front of me, and I do them. When I got my black belt in jiu jitsu, it didn’t feel like I was climbing a mountain with the “goal” of the black belt on top. I just went to class every day because I liked doing it. Somewhere out there was the idea that some day if I kept doing it, I would get a black belt, but mostly, I just focused on what was in front of me. I think that focusing on “goals” would keep me too focused on the future, to the detriment of my experience of the present.

Additionally, what I want in the future is likely to be different than what I think I will want, but setting a “goal” locks in my conception of the future. If I turn out to want something different, I have to give up on my “goal”. I have to be failure just to change my mind.

Look at that guy in the ad. Yay, he climbed the mountain! What is he going to eat now that he’s up there? Who is he going to talk to? Oh, and let’s not even get started on how only one person can be at the peak of the mountain, and everyone else has to be underneath.

All you over-achievers are welcome to enjoy your mountain. I’m going to go get dirty.