I consider myself a blessed man. There is no prevailing sickness in my life; crime organizations don’t have a contract for my head (or any other body part for that matter); I’ve had goals in my life that I’ve achieved. But the “big one”…yes, we’re all after the “big one”. The “big one” is what I call someone’s ultimate dream. Different people have different “big ones”. What’s funny is that whether or not we ever reach the “big one”, if we strive for it, we usually can look behind us and see that we’ve accomplished more than we would have if we had not strived for it. As you can see, I’m going through a stage of melancholy today. Whenever I’m melancholic, I become sentimental. Whenever I become sentimental, I begin to drift into nostalgia. Oh, nostalgia…you know, they called me the “big one” in high school (don’t ask why).
I totally agree with you that we can certainly go further striving for unreachable goals that we naively presume are within reach. However, there comes a point when reevaluation of those goals becomes a necessity (so we don’t go on beating our heads against the wall).
When we leave the old Impossible Dream to pursue the new Impossible Dream, we are each time giving ourselves an opportunity to perhaps achieve that which was once “impossible”. And when we go back and examine the old dreams, we’ll find that either they aren’t as appealing as they once were, or they are much more within our grasp.
For instance, 17 years ago, I BEGGED my mom for a Nintendo. I dreamed of it. But I never got one. Now that I have pursued other, loftier goals, I find today that a Nintendo (Wii) is much more of an attainable goal, but it no longer has the same appeal. (Not that I don’t want one…)
Ah, nostalgia…
Or sometimes when someone reaches the “Big One”, it isn’t what they thought it was cracked up to be, or they get complacent. But sometimes they enjoy it. It’s always good to set up new goals if you accomplish old ones.