Feb 23rd, 2024 Friday Sunny (for now)
“What is your goal for this year?”
This is a question often asked by managers, especially new ones, regardless of what kind of employers they come from. It is viewed as a strategy to “engage” the employees.
Personally I find this question annoying, not because I do not usually have goals, professionally or otherwise, but because the expectation this question implies, that one SHOULD always have goals, and the goals SHOULD align with that of their boss (of course).
Before I started my first full-time job, I was clueless as to what a real job would be like. I gathered some amount of information at the interview, yet that was very limited. I had to fill in the blank with my imagination. Once I walked into the office, I found that most things were different from the images in my head. When my manager asked me that question in our first meeting, I felt being put on the stage without a script. Fortunately, I was in interview mode not too long ago, so I quickly came up with some answers that would sound appropriate, though those had nothing to do with my real goals, because – heaven forbid, I was still figuring out what this job is like, how could I already have goals? It would be like setting a destination in a completely strange territory.
It was not that different when I took my current job. Even though I had more working experiences, I recognize that no two jobs are alike, and you do not truly understand the job until you have been on it for a while. I certainly had personal goals (e.g. making more money to let me retire early), but why would I share that with my manager? That is definitely NOT what they want to hear.
The underlying assumption of that question is that employees are willing and fully committed to pour their heart and energy into their workplace, that their future perfectly matches that of the organization. From what I have seen, this is rarely the case nowadays.
Moreover, do we NEED to have goals all the time? Is life just chasing one goal after another? Once we reached one goal, we immediately search for the next one and start running again?
Is life a series of sprints or a marathon? I think both.
Some goals that are achievement-based, e.g. landing an important job, finishing a large project, are like sprints. You charge up and race as fast as you can, in a relatively short period of time, then you can put down your flag and proudly claim you did it.
Some goals, on the other hand, take time, and you can never truly check it off until the end of the journey. Those goals require patience and persistence, since one deviation from it might ruin the outlook. For example, living a healthy life, caring and loving one’s family, enjoying the beauty of every day.
While employers tend to only focus on the former goals, to me it is the latter goals that define the qualify of one’s life, bring one happiness, and make life worth living.
Yuuki and Sesame know this value by heart. They never fail to seize the opportunity to bask in the sun, being aware that sunlight does not stay forever. When the sun bathing time ends, they are fully recharged, ready for the next hunting play episode.