Reaching the Goals

While looking through quotes on Pinterest I ran across one that caught my eye in regards to what I'm doing with my 52 @ 52. It says: "The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach." I've realized from the onset of this process that I most likely won't reach every goal I've set for myself. I've had several people question "why" I'm even pushing myself to do all of these things. Some have told me they can't imagine doing 52 of anything and if I let them, I could let it discourage me to think..."I can't do this so why try." The above quote really spoke to me because when I thought about the people who have expressed amazement that I would put myself through this or have conceded to say. "You'll never see me doing something like that."  I see mostly people who have lived their lives without pushing themselves in anyway.  Setting a goal is a foreign concept to many of them and willingly putting something big in front of themselves is just not something they'd ever consider doing.

So that made me think.  Why am I doing this? What do I hope to achieve? What do I want to bring away from this experience.  The "why" is simply a matter of being something that I have done my whole life.  I've always pushed myself to learn from life; to be better; to do better; and to push myself to be more.  I never wanted to ever settle or relax and say. "I'm good enough and I don't need to try anything beyond where I am at this point."  Life is not meant to be lived on the sidelines. For us to grow, we need to have a plan.  We need to teach ourselves to push forward even though most of the time it would be easier to just lie down and do nothing.  I've mentioned earlier what I hope to achieve this year but it's worth repeating. I want to be more aware of life, more aware of others and how I can help them and I want to have reference points so that when I get to be my mom's age....I can remember when I was 52. To some it may seem silly but I live with a concern that due to family history, I could someday find myself with alzheimers. My grandmother and aunt both had it in varying degrees. My Mom asked me one time to write my memories of my grandmother and I told her I had nothing to write because my only memories of her were alzheimer memories. I was too young when it hit to remember her any other way. Oh how I would love to have some record, some diary or journal or scrapbook of who my grandmother really was. I know she was more than just a lady in a wheelchair who saw things in her mind and didn't recognize me as her grandchild. I know she laughed, she cried, she raised kids, she kept a house, she loved and she believed.  So my motivation behind all my scrapbooking, journal writing, letter writing and picture taking is my grandmother. Cathy Zielski had this quote in one of her idea books that sums it up nicely...."Above all else it is about leaving a mark that I existed: I was here. I was hungry. I was defeated. I was happy. I was sad. I was in love. I was afraid. I was hopeful. I had an idea and I had a purpose"... by felix gonzalez torres. What I want to bring away from this is personal growth. I want to see how far I can push myself, I want to learn to be better, I want to try harder to be a better me. If I don't make it, at least I tried, at least I had a goal to start with.