What it means to go for a goal

Then and now

As I was mulling over what I should write about this week, what kept coming to mind was the difference between what it’s like for me to train for a race now, versus what that experience was like the first time I did it, back in my twenties.

Then, I was completely consumed by the experience of training for a marathon — especially my first, which I equated with what it must be like to climb Mount Everest. I followed my training schedule religiously, followed all the dietary suggestions the coaches I talked to recommended, and purchased the gear they said I ought to.

I remember feeling a little like a horse at the Kentucky Derby, you know? When they put blinders on them, they can’t see anything to their left or their right; the only thing they can see is the goal they’re focused on, which lies straight ahead. Nothing can come between them and the finish line, as long as they keep those blinders on.

That’s the way I lived, too. Yes, of course, I like to think I was always kind and considerate toward the people around me (and I really was, I think!). But for the most part, I was focused on myself, and myself alone — aiming toward my goals, my aspirations, my desires. I didn’t think a lot about other people; I was learning how to use my wings, learning how to fly on my own.

Today, my life is so, so different. I have a partner, young children, and parents who are getting older, and starting to experience some serious health challenges. Which means the blinders I wore when I was younger — and completely focused on myself — I can’t wear anymore. They’re no longer useful to me, or to the people in my life.

Over the past year, my father has had to undergo multiple surgeries; more recently, my hometown was pummeled by Hurricane Helene, which ripped apart dozens of trees around my parents’ home. Meanwhile, we’ve also experienced the challenges of aging on my in-laws’ side too; and my 11-year-old son is home sick from school today, even as I write this!

The blinders I wore have had to come off; now, I look to my left and my right constantly, to keep check on the people around me. Are they okay? What do they need? Is there anything I’m not seeing?

Back in the eighties, when I was a teenager, Bruce Springsteen released his landmark Born in the U.S.A. album, followed the next year by (what was for me) something even better, his five-record Live 1975-1985 collection — which, the Gen X readers here will surely remember, was anchored by his legendary anthem, “Born to Run”:

If you have the time, take a few minutes to watch the video. It’s absolutely electric, and captures the spirit of what I felt back when I was in my twenties, training for that first big race, spreading my wings really for the first time in my life: “Oh, someday, girl, I don't know when/We're gonna get to that place
where we really wanna go and we'll walk in the sun …”

That feeling of that transcendent place you want to get to, where the cares and insecurities and frustrations you feel now, you’ve thrown completely off — it’s a fantastic feeling, isn’t it? And when you saw him live, you felt that feeling — of breaking free, of shattering whatever cocoon you found yourself in.

At the time he was performing this version of the song, Bruce was 35 years old and in the white-hot peak of his career, touring stadiums around the world and playing to millions of fans. (Not really all that different from Taylor Swift right now, right?)

What is so interesting to me now, though, is when I listen to that song, as often as not I remember a different version he played on later tours, after he had married and had kids of his own. This was a toned-down, acoustic version, without the E. Street Band backing him up — in this version, it was just him, a guitar and a harmonica, and the feeling is totally different:

I actually got to see him live on one of the tours when he played this version of the song, and I remember him explaining that it had a much different meaning for him, because he was a different person. That rather than (only) being about breaking free, that he found meaning in home, in being connected, and being closer to loved ones, family and friends.

Listen to it — there’s something plaintive, almost melancholy about it, right? The idea behind the acoustic version, I think now when I reflect on it, is that there is a time in our lives when we need to break free, when we need to use our wings to fly on our own. And that means so much for us at that stage in our lives.

But a time comes when different parts of our lives take center stage; when we devote more time to caring for others than just to caring for ourselves. In fact, the time when we get to focus just on ourselves may or may not last all that long, as this wonderful essay in The Atlantic points out:

“… when people reflect on their life, burrowing around for what really matters and who they really are, the care they gave and the care they received is almost always top of mind. Yet philosophical reckonings with morality have long failed to acknowledge this. Thinkers have instead been preoccupied with defining right or wrong based on interactions between independents, two people who are essentially equals. But humans spend much of their lives in dependency relationships: We start as children dependent on parents, become adults who care for our children, move on to caring for our parents or other adults, and later become older and require care again. Not always in that order, not always with all the steps. But true independence is the anomaly, not the norm.”

And yet we still have a self that wants to achieve, wants to grow, wants to continue to spread its wings and explore. We still can do that, of course — I think, though, that the meaning of what we’re aiming to achieve changes. It’s not only for ourselves alone anymore; rather, we aspire and aim for new goals in part to show our children that they, too, can do these things. That they, too, can dream and achieve.

There are times when I feel guilty about pursuing goals just for myself, especially at this point in my life. But maybe “guilt” is the wrong word; maybe pursuing personal goals just doesn’t have the same meaning it once did, and for them to mean something now, they need to be about more than just me.

What do you think? Have you experienced the same thing, the same kind of transformation in the way you think? I’d love to know, either in the comments or in reply back — as always, keep in touch and let me know how your running/life is going!

Your friend,

— Terrell