Goal!

Fate, destiny, call it what you will. I’ve known people who’d swear there was a plan for them.

Paul would loudly proclaim it after the seventh drink at the Harvard Gardens on a Friday night. He’d labor away at the same tedious job the rest of the week. He never tried to improve his lot or anyone else’s. On Friday, his target was to get shut off by the waitress. I assume his plan for life depended on some great Deus ex-Machina intervening on his behalf. That night, he left the table and watched the bar TV as the Bruins missed an easy shot. An opposing team fan made a disparaging comment. Paul’s bellow rang out around the entire bar, ” It’s not over till it’s over!!!”

At the next table over was Suzzanne. This weekend, she would be short-staffed on an orthopedic floor at the hospital. Her goal was to get through the following several long, tiring shifts that would leave her feeling like a crispy critter. Her boyfriend of eight years still dithered on whether or not to marry her. In a year, she’d meet a nice physical therapist who’d romance her away and deliver on the promise of a “real family” soon after. Tonight, she was less concerned with her fate or destiny than the patients under her care.

Then there was our almost friend John. John was our own “Cunning Man.” When he wasn’t in the midst of some idiotic con job, he was the person you could go to for advice on many subjects. He maintained that a good con artist was an educated con artist, and he didn’t mind sharing his wisdom and knowledge for free, provided that he wasn’t otherwise “working.” In a decade, his ability to see through a con and help people would lead to a new career path in Washington, D.C.

Me? I was sitting there just soaking it in—a high school dropout with no prospects beyond the next gig at some tiny coffeehouse. Within five years, I’d somehow manage to finagle entrance to a university without the diploma and go on to grad school. These shattered expectations of my ending early and unsuccessfully.

Fate and destiny are funny things. They are not always what we want or need and may or may not be part of any plan. We may not even see where we are going in detail. Some of us may make our goals early in life, and others late in life. Surprisingly, it may have been Paul who had the right of it -” It’s not over till it’s over!!!”