goal for life

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I'm at the Olympic trials...just a nothing spectator, watching others take center stage. I saw a girl from my home state win the 10,000meter in the race of her life, to go to the Olympics.

I once dreamed of being an Olympian, but for my efforts got only injury, failure, disappointment, ignominy.

No longer.

My future may notbe as an athlete, but as god as my witness I'm going to accomplish something just a great and beautiful. Make a fantastic film, or write the next great novel. Something.

I will do something positive that will ensure people remember me with love and admiration.

I'll achieve this or destroy myself in the process...

Good luck.

Personally I've come to learn that doing things solely for fame is just not worth it. I'd rather just do what I truly enjoy and could not care less whether anyone else benefits from it. It's good to know your work is appreciated, but I doubt it would amount to how good it would be if you were proud of your own work and enjoyed the effort you put into it yourself.

That's in itself not a bad goal, Brian. However, be careful with these two things:

I'm not certain that the adulation of the masses should be a goal in and of itself.

If you wish to achieve great things, you're still going to want to take it one step at a time. The greatest paintings, novels, albums, are composed over a timespan of months, sometimes even years, going through a process of correcting, correcting, correcting, sometimes even resulting in something that doesn't resemble the idea that started it.

Try not to make your goal into a huge mountain that per definition is difficult to climb. I've been in that same position, and found my self so intimidated by my own aspirations and desires, that I ran away from them with my tail between my legs, so spooked was I.

I've experienced a frustration similar to yours. It's good to tell yourself you're good or awesome at something frequently, but you must also love yourself enough to allow yourself to stumble a bit and make mistakes. That doesn't make the world end; remember that you can always get up and continue.

Also, if I could close this off, it's my personal opinion that making something great and beautiful is perhaps an overrated goal; greatness and beauty are subjective. You can make something that you consider a great artistic achievement, and have another person see it who says "That's bland/ugly/uninspired". You can have 8 out of 10 people come along and say that. Popular opinion should not be a measuring standard for your creative efforts. Create primarily for yourself, or if you're not as egotistical as I am, for a small, select audience that can appreciate your projects in the first place.

All I know is I have no time to waste. These olympians have already achieved a lifetime's worth by their mid 20s. I'm 28...ancient. never had a girlfriend, probably never will. I've made or worked on 6 feature films, but none have mattered. I must change by working harder, and giving up silly ideations I'll ever be normal, find love or acceptance for who I am. If I can only achieve greatness for my work as a filmmaker or writer, I will finally be accepted, and my life will have meant something. I will justify my existence,and leave something beautiful behind to mark my existence.

Working hard toward a goal is a very good thing, in the sense that it gives you practice in something you enjoy and are good at, and makes you expand your boundaries. But don't forget that there isn't only one or two things any person is good at, and don't forget that skills can be learned.

Like I said, I can relate to what you're saying very much. I've been telling myself "Wow, many of my age peers have already gotten their Master's degrees in biology and are now active in that field, while I haven't even finished my exams to be allowed into Uni yet". But in reality, there are many others who only start a Bachelor study in their late 20s to early 30s, and even some who are well past 50 when they decide they want to enroll in university to take their lives into a whole new direction.

Age is very real, I agree, and it's good that you don't want to sit on your duff into your thirties watching the clock go by and instead do something of certain significance, BUT age also isn't absolute in terms of years. Someone who's 25 may psychologically be not quite as mature as someone else who's 19; someone who's 30 might be a lot wiser than another person who's 46. I prefer not to see life as having a checklist with things to do at certain ages, to check off from that list or otherwise you're "late". Heck, I still live 'with my Dad' (in reality we live together, and where one goes, the other follows), and I get weird looks from other people about that. So what?

When it comes to finding love, don't give up on that. It's something you can't force, but as a Dutch saying goes: "for every jar there's a lid that fits". I'm certain that there are people out there who would love to get to know you just a little bit deeper. Once you feel more confident about yourself -perhaps through your endeavours in film or writing- it MAY become easier to present yourself to other people and socialise a bit more comfortably.

If acceptance and justification is what you seek, then I hope you will find it, and soon. But accepting yourself is important as well. Why don't you keep us updated on your progress in achieving these goals, perhaps in the Art & Writing subforum? That way, you might also get some feedback whenever you run into a snag or aren't feeling so hot.