Speculative Stephen

I don’t set goals for monumental change in my own life. Approaching the end of four decades, I’m beginning to think that monumental change is incredibly rare and hard. Oof, writing that sentence is a little painful. Hey look, I’m getting older. See how wise I am. But it’s something I don’t see another way to communicate.

Time gives you experience, which, hopefully, gives a little understanding. In this case, that understanding is that small daily, weekly, and even monthly efforts have an impact beyond my own life.

Maintaining goals over long periods of time is difficult. My exercise regime could be better, my diet could be healthier, but even if they were, my body will age. Even if I took perfect care of my house, the paint still flakes, the cupboard shelves still sag, the old pipes will start to leak. Mow the lawn and drought still kills the grass. Law down mulch and weeds still grow in the garden.

“Change and decay in all around I see” can be discouraging. What’s the point in continuing to set goals?

The point is that those small day-to-day changes may be invisible to me, but they are visible to others around me. Do you have a niece or nephew that you only see every year or so? They grow so much in between visits! But my own kids hardly seem to change. It’s harder to see the slow change happening daily in our lives.

What’s more, a lot of small changes by a lot of people adds up to a lot of change. My home is brightly lit at 11 pm as I type these words into an incredibly complex calculating machine that can share them with anyone in the world in milliseconds because millions of people made small efforts over the last few centuries. They built a foundation which has made my life immeasurably better.

Maybe my small efforts don’t amount to much tomorrow. But small efforts over a long period of time add up. And when you add up small efforts by millions of people over years and decades, a whole lot of change can happen.

So, I continue to set goals. Maybe not big goals. But something.

This month I’ve set a simple goal: write daily. I’ve already missed one day, but 13 out of 14 is better than I’ve done in several months! So here’s to another 16 days! that’s a pat on the back.